“Why is it so difficult to choose?” was the title of a talk organised by the New Acropolis School of Philosophy in Almería and presented by Filipa Lameira and Daniel Iglesias.  It is worth reviewing the etymology of the word. To choose (in Spanish ‘elegir’) comes from the Latin “ex legere”, something that goes from within outwards, to choose or read different possibilities, and to select from them. To choose means a reduced number of options or alternatives; you have to give up something in order to choose something else. Knowing how to choose is a virtue that depends on another virtue, intelligence, which also comes from “legere”, to read. It implies a difficulty.

Why is it so difficult to choose? Difficulty comes from the Latin “dis-“, to distance, and “facultare”, to do: that which distances one from being able to do something. But it can be done. The whole history of humanity is a history of difficulties. What is easy is what already belongs to us. What is difficult is what has to be conquered and developed.