You are sitting at the dining table. Your mother pushes a printed list of job postings across to you.
“Pick one of these three and register this weekend.”
Your father adds, “Once you pass the exam, you’re set.”
You look down at the paper. You say nothing. But a voice in your head, small but clear, says: This is not what I want.
But you do not know what you actually want. So you do not object.
Your fingerprints are not on that paper.
There is a professor at Columbia Business School named Sheena Iyengar. She studies “choice.”
Not how to make choices, but what fundamentally happens to human beings when they face them.
Her most famous experiment took place in a supermarket. She set up two jam-tasting booths—one displaying 24 varieties of jam, the other with only 6. The booth with 24 jams attracted more onlookers, but only 3% actually made a purchase. The booth with 6 jams, however, yielded a 30% purchase rate.
The more options there are, the more paralyzed the decision-maker becomes. This is the “Paradox of Choice,” a concept that has since been cited tens of thousands of times.
But Iyengar’s research did not stop there. She later spent considerable time studying a specific type of decision: choices made for you by others.
She discovered a pattern: when the decision-maker is not you—when your parents, your boss, or your cultural background chooses on your behalf—you do experience short-term relief. Anxiety decreases; the friction of deliberation is bypassed.
In the long run, however, individuals subject to proxy choices report significantly lower satisfaction with the outcomes.
This is not because the choice itself was poor. It is because a layer of separation exists between you and the result. Because you did not participate in the process of “choosing,” you cannot truly own the “outcome.”
Iyengar’s research can be summarized by a fundamental rule:
Choice is not merely about picking an option. Often, it is the very process by which we define “who I am.”
When others choose for you, what you save is not trouble. What you forfeit is an opportunity to define yourself.
The real issue with taking the civil service exam is never about “whether being a civil servant is a good job.”
The systemic question is: who made the decision?
If you ran the numbers yourself—weighing the stability, income trajectory, pace of life, and career ceiling—and then declared, “I choose this path,” that is perfectly fine. Your fingerprints are on this path. Even if you regret it later, you know you signed off on it yourself.
But if this decision was made by your parents, and you simply did not object—the nature of the choice is entirely different.
You think you spared yourself a dilemma. In reality, you have planted a highly destructive phrase for your future self: “They were the ones who made me take the exam.”
In the future, every time you work late into the night. Every time you see former classmates thriving in the corporate world. Every time the monotony of your days feels suffocating. The first thought that pops into your head will not be, “How should I pivot?” It will be that excuse.
That phrase will haunt you for a long time. Because your fingerprints are not on that path.
There is a rarely mentioned detail in Iyengar’s research.
She found that in cultures emphasizing collectivism—such as Asian families—choices made by parental proxy actually yield relatively high short-term satisfaction. The act of “listening to your elders” inherently provides a sense of belonging and psychological safety.
Over an extended timeline, however, the divergence becomes apparent.
Those whose choices were outsourced early in life exhibit significantly more hesitation and avoidance when facing major decisions in middle age. This is not due to a lack of capability, but because they have never practiced the feedback loop of “making a wrong choice and bearing the consequences.”
Choice is a capability. Left unused, it atrophies.
Your parents shield you from immediate anxiety, but they also shield you from the opportunity to learn how to bear consequences.
This does not mean your parents’ advice is without value. Their experience and their understanding of stability are, of course, worth analyzing.
But “listening” and “making your own decision after listening” are two distinct processes.
Whether it is joining the civil service, entering the corporate sector, or starting a business. What ensures you will not feel regret in the future is not the specific path you chose.
It is the fact that your fingerprints are on that path.
Iyengar actually suffers from severe visual impairment and lost her sight many years ago. Yet she continues to study choice.
This reflects the ultimate truth faced by anyone who studies decision-making:
You will make mistakes. But at the very least, those mistakes must be your own.
That list of job postings currently in your hand—who wrote the options on it?
[ Reflection ] — Decision-making can be practiced.
