The Menu of Life

Friday night I went out to eat with my friends to celebrate a birthday. Of course we got all done up and went to some fancy-schmancy place in Minneapolis. We sat down, I immediately launched into an animated discussion of some random unimportant facet of our lives, and when it came time to order I realized I hadn't even opened the menu. I glanced over the random overpriced seafood, and decided I would rather not battle through the complicated entrees with their complicated ingredients, so I asked the waitress what's good and as she listed off a bunch of expensive sounded things, I quickly chose the first thing I could pronounce. Looking at my check at the end of the meal, of course I realized I chose one of the most expensive things on the menu. It was good, but definitely more expensive than something I would have chosen myself.

The things we "choose" for ourselves are not based solely on our free will. Not only are we influenced by advertisement or our attitudes at the time (too lazy to read the menu), but also by the options that are given to us. We may think that looking at the options at the grocery store, or the restaurant, or our fridge that we have the free will to choose whatever we want. But our choices and influenced firstly by the choices that are given to us. We have 7 different brands of pepperoni pizza to choose from in the supermarket, which seems like a lot, but what if we wanted pepperoni with gummy bears? We would have to make it ourselves, thus having to choose between the different crusts, different kinds of pepperoni, and different kinds of gummy bears, limiting our free will once again.

I really know nothing about economics to explain this in detail or anything, but the food market determines what choices we have, what menu we get to choose from, based on whats most efficient and brings the most profit. Therefore, the different entrees the waitress listed off for me where all the most expensive items on the menu, thus limiting my choices to those things that would bring the restaurant the most profit and limiting my free will.