Improve, mitigate, tolerate

The New York Times seems to be on a role with articles that highlight people's desire to avoid having to make trade-off decisions.

There was Friends of a Certain Age by Alex Williams highlighting the consequences of having a busy life which crowds out sustaining close friendships.

Then there was Two Classes, Divided by ‘I Do’ by Jason DeParle highlighting the consequences of poor choices.

Seems there have been others. They are of a piece with the recent controversial Atlantic article, Why Women Still Can’t Have It All by Anne-Marie Slaughter

It is as if there is a sudden dawning among the chattering classes that you can't have it all, life is a series of decisions that both open up some opportunities and close down others, decisions that oft-times we are ill-prepared to make and the consequences of which we are reluctant to accept when it emerges we chose poorly. Given that many decisions cannot be unmade, it seems as if there are really only three possible positive outcomes: 1) learn from the experience and determine how to avoid making similarly bad decisions in the future, 2) figure out how to mitigate the undesired consequences, 3) adopt a value system that permits you to put everything into a tolerable context.