By definition, decisions are self-selecting. When choosing between two things, people will, without fail, make the decision that more totally satisfies their preferences or skillset. As per the Roy Model, ceteris paribus, if you’re made to choose between hunting and fishing and you really suck at fishing, you’ll go hunt.
The big problem here is that the real world isn’t binary. Life throws a practically infinite number of options your way, so navigating those becomes just that much more complicated. Here we run into the crux of the issue: self-selection doesn’t work with incomplete information. In plain english, how should you know to devote your time to what you’re best at if you don’t even know you’re any good at it?
I think the self-selection problem many of us face in life is largely a bandwidth issue. The fix is to increase the flow of information-- basically, try out more stuff. Of course, this comes with trade-offs. If you’re doing a million things at once, you’ll be hard-pressed to be world-class at any of them. In the long run though, I think it’s still worth it to really weigh your options before running full-speed with something. In my mind, the worst case scenario is realizing you made a mistake in a direction you chose in life after it’s way harder to correct course.
To deal with this issue, many of us take the easier route. Rather than trying out more things, we simply strive to make decisions easier on ourselves. Marketing as a field thrives off this bandwidth problem. People either don’t want to or are unable to explore more options so they take what’s literally or figuratively being sold to them in order to define themselves. This, I think, is why we have stereotypes and is part of the reason tribalism causes people to associate so strongly by race, creed and color.
Fully understanding that people’s situations give them different amounts of slack to explore, I think we should all strive to follow multiple passions as we check in with ourselves throughout life. To not re-evaluate our options feels a bit like living with blinders on.
Until tomorrow,
Alex