Battle Royale: De Zengotita v. Rushkoff

In the first chapter of Thomas De Zengotita's Mediated, he said, "you are completely free to choose because it doesn't matter what you choose. That's why you are so free. Because it doesn't matter. How cool is that?"

Pretty darn cool.

When I read this, my chest got tight. My heart skipped a beat.
Because he's right and I'd had the same idea.

Junior year of high school, I started my search for colleges, just as I'm on the hunt for graduate schools now that the end of my "junior" year as an undergrad is wrapping up.

I spent so much energy looking for the perfect place for me. So much stress. TOO much stress.

The big contenders in the beginning were South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (I was going to be an engineer) and KU (what a mistake that would have been, huh?).
But I didn't REALLY know that I wanted to be an engineer, so if I had committed to an engineering school, I would have been setting a permanent path. I would have been boxed in.
Just like having a child and naming it Jeeves. It has no other career path other than to be a butler (That's a Seinfeld joke).
I felt like I needed to know what I wanted to do before I went to college, but I KNEW that I had to go to college to know what I wanted to do. You can see where the stress comes in.

So I went to an engineering school at KU the summer going into my senior year and realized I did NOT want to be a engineer. Too many answers to one question. I like black and white. I like right and wrong. So I was going to be a physicist instead. There's good money in that, and I'm a woman, so affirmative action was going to give me an extra boost.
I had decided on KU.
And then K-State customer service was out-of-this-world and gave me more money than KU did.

So I went to K-State (with my brother, which was a major reason I didn't want to go to K-State), started the physics program, got myself a hot boyfriend, joined the marching band, the rugby team, and got involved.

I would have been happy no matter where I went.
It didn't matter what I chose.
This realization has stuck with me every since. A constant reminder that the things that look like big things, really aren't.

It doesn't matter what you choose.

I then changed my major to anthropology and got rid of the boyfriend I realized wasn't so hot. I also never see my brother.
Still happy. No - happier. My choices didn't matter. I still have the moments in my day where I can be doing to most mundane things, pause, and think, "I could never be more happy than I am in this moment."

Douglas Rushkoff disagrees with us (Thomas De Zengotita and me). In the first chapter of Program or be Programmed

That the decisions we make DO matter and on such a scale that they not only affect the quality of our lives now, but the lives of future generations.

He says this in regard to programmers (who write code) and the programmed (who use it), stating that the programmed are continuously getting less out of life and are consistently "less" because they are not creating and taking active roles in the new medium of computers.
But I feel that this concept of the programmer and the programee goes beyond code writing. You can be programmed in culture. You are programmed by your peers.

So, who's right?
I might like right and wrong, black and white, but when there is no definitive right and wrong, black and white, I like debate. I like philosophy. I like "why are we here" and "what's the meaning of life".

Or maybe I'm just on the surface. Maybe they only seem like conflicting ideas.
Any thoughts?
This is dire in the life of Katy and one can only have big ideas standing on the shoulders of giants.