Louise Carroll: Too many choices
We would have more time, more energy and less stress if we didn't have so many choices.
Researchers at Cornell University estimate the average adult makes about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions each day. It's no wonder we are tired at the end of a day.
From the time I get up in the morning until I go to bed, I am busy making choices. Some seem automatic, like stand, sit, walk and eat. I just reach for a box of cereal and then coffee, but do I want the maple cinnamon, blueberry muffin or one of my other favorite flavors?
The night before, I had already made decisions about what to wear in the morning. I have a lot of clothes to pick from and that’s not a complaint.
Cornell researchers said the average adult makes 226.7 decisions each day on food alone. I think I’m above average as I seem to have food on my mind often. When I go to restaurants with friends, I have to order last. If I order first, I’ll decide some else's order sounds better than mine.
It’s overwhelming to think how many choices I've made at home even before noon. If I go shopping for groceries or more fun stuff, there are many choices to be made. You can't just buy butter, you have to choose the brand and whether it’s unsalted or not. The milk selections can boggle the mind. I buy almond milk and that comes with a lot of choices, sweetened, non-sweetened, flavored, etc. Our great-grandparents milked the cow and drank the milk.
Modern society has become stressful.
Of course I'm talking about the little things. There are serious life decisions that we all make and those can have consequences. I’m not going down that road; I'm just thinking about the bread and butter of daily living.
Flash back to when our stalwart ancestors went to the store by horse and buggy. They gave the storekeeper their list: flour, sugar, salt, rice and maybe baking soda. The storekeeper put the bags on the counter, they loaded the buggy and headed home.
Most families ate what they grew, the chickens laid eggs and the cows provided milk that was also turned into butter, cottage cheese, etc.
My grandmother, who died in 1954, always thought she had to have a cow. In her words, "If you didn't have a cow, you were no account.” I think this meant you were lazy and shiftless.
Back in the day, women were not given many choices about what they were going to do each day.
The plan was already in place:
Wash on Monday
Iron on Tuesday
Bake on Wednesday
Brew on Thursday
Churn on Friday
Mend on Saturday
Meeting on Sunday.
Don't assume they were brewing tea on Thursday; we all know it doesn't take a day to make a cuppa. According to my research, they were brewing beer. I don't understand why they were brewing it every Thursday. I don't want to burst your bubble, but the Quakers had breweries because they drank alcohol - in moderation, of course. The Pilgrims did, too.
Philadelphia had a big role in U.S. beer culture. Brewing in southeastern Pennsylvania dates back to early colonial times when Quakers ran small brewing operations out of their homes.
As for churning on Friday, I haven't seen anyone churning since my grandmother in the 1940s.
Who spends a day each week baking, doing laundry or ironing?
We have all these labor-saving devices for chores that took our ancestors all day to finish.
Where is all that time we should be saving? Last summer in Sugarcreek, Ohio there was a robot mowing the lawn that looked just like the ones that sweep the floors. I haven't seen one here, but maybe I just wasn't in the right place at the right time.
We are busier than ever because we are making thousands of decisions every day. It never ends.
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Louise Carroll: Too many choices
