In David’s Foster Wallace’s, This is Water, Wallace utilizes repetition in general to teach the reader how to reevaluate ideas in a more productive light. He is able to do this by taking real life situations and break them down. Wallace uses an every day experience usually all individuals go through to illustrate how people get to choose what they see and how they view it. Part of that situation shows how people should think and choose to be aware of what decisions they make when living their lives day to day. Not only how a person lives their life, but also how they view each other lives. It is just about, if not entirely, impossible for two distinct individuals to live the same life and be precisely the same as each other. Wallace presents this reason that everyone is uniquely different in there own way because the decisions they make. Individuals need these differences in order to separate one another in order to be able to pride each other on being diverse and assorted. 

People need to be more considerate of other people’s opinions. Having conflicting views does not always mean one person or the other has a wrong opinion. According to Wallace, everyone interprets things differently because of their  “two different belief templates and two different ways of constructing meaning from experience” (Wallace XI). Repeating the word “different” in this passage emphasizes how individuals are different by making different decisions. If individuals were not different, life would be exceptionally tiring. There would not be anything new for people to learn and be able to enhance their knowledge. Therefore, Wallace suggests that people think thoroughly about the actual meaning of such situations, rather than base new options on what they already believe to be true. He asserts that in most situations, people allow their minds to unintentionally derive meaning on their side, constantly becoming more and more selective and picky about what excites them and what depresses them. By being observant, individuals demonstrate that every person truly cares and thinks about other individuals, regardless of how different they are. 

Unfortunately, some individuals choose to be oblivious and unaware to their surroundings of the environment. That can change within the blink of an eye. Every person needs to “choose to look differently” (Wallace XV), by being “just a little less ignorant” (Wallace XII) to see the lives of others clearly. By repeating the words “choice” and “differently” many times throughout the text, Wallace drives the message that individuals need to make conscious decisions about how they live there lives day to day. He also wants people to think about their awareness of others and be able to look at life in different perspectives. Individuals tend to have bad days, possibly awful days; however, it is possible that another person is having a more terrible day than a certain individual. If everyone keeps continuing to pay no attention to the differences that will make people inconsiderate and irritable when a person might need a hand or a shoulder to cry or lean on. Instead, Wallace recognizes that individuals should think intentionally, by seeing everyone’s differences, and act in a proper way. By all individuals changing their focus and looking at a situation in an unexpected way, they can acknowledge how another person is encountering it. 

Later in the text, Wallace includes a depiction of individuals at a grocery store. He explains this as a “dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routine” (Wallace XIV). After providing this image for his audience, he juxtaposes it with a new mindset. Wallace puts this situation into perspective by adding possible context for what the other individuals are experiencing. He explains that “you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line” (Wallace XV), and by doing so a person has consciously made a better decision. Again here a person is being aware of their surroundings, which allow them to care about different individuals. 

A person being aware of their surroundings is a part of learning how to think and make decisions. Wallace makes a clear explanation of the concept of ones “natural default setting” that takes part in a person’s decision making. How after a long, stressful day, a person ends up becoming tired and annoyed. According to Wallace, this is when the brain switches to the “natural default setting” to wanting the day to be over with. If a person knows what to think and what decision to make, that makes them aware of others and what they might be going through at the time is difficult. “But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options,” (Wallace XV), Wallace says. Having other options can create a persons mind to think the decisions they make are truly important in the surroundings around them. Wallace encourages people to go out in the world and deal with infuriating situations with a more open mind.

Through This Is Water, Wallace establishes a way to better one’s life through choices and acceptance of different individuals. Everything in life is a choice, and that is a true freedom for everyone. Being unconscious to how individuals think would cause people to live miserable lives. Every person is possible to make a choice that will bring change for them, which will not only improve the quality of their own life but the lives of others around them. The life each one lives may not be the best, but it is considered a blessing compared to others. Wallace ends on the note that all choices will impact a person, whether it is good or bad. In the end, people can only control their own minds and not the external world. 
