So much comes down to choosing this path or that, and the selection we make disturbs or gratifies people whose decisions are already made because they would have us tamp down the dirt behind them, because they don't want to be swallowed up.
~~Prescription for a Superior Existence by Josh Emmons

Prescription for a Superior Existence is a sci-fi type novel about a gluttonous, addictive, power hungry man named Jack Smith who gets abducted by and sucked into a cult like group named PASE, or Prescription for A Superior Existence. I don't have much to say about the book, but the above quote, found on the last page of the novel, gave me much to think about. Why is it that the choices the people in our lives make, even the ones that do not effect us in the slightest, have such weight on our psyches? Really, why should it matter what school my neighbor chooses for her child or if my friend from the gym chooses Mac or PC? Do we care because we want our own decisions to be validated or are we that self-involved to think that we should have influence over the decisions made by those around us?