Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom - Soren Kierkegaard
Have you ever spent 30 minutes in front of the dental hygiene aisle at CVS, trying to pick out the perfect toothpaste? Haha me neither (*nervous laughter). I am sure you’ve struggled with indecision for something more substantial, right? Something like choosing classes for college, deciding which apartment to move into, buying a new laptop or smartphone, choosing a doctor, choosing your spouse, choosing your career?
In the pursuit of perfection, how does one avoid analysis paralysis and pointless vacillation. Is it even possible to completely optimize everything? Having abundant options is a hallmark of individual freedom and should rightly be celebrated. But in this modern, hurried world where we are privy to an overwhelming abundance of everything, are we really psychologically better off? This is the central question Barry Schwartz is setting out to answer in “The Paradox of Choice”.
“The Paradox of Choice” is not only a psychological analysis of indecision, it also provides guidance on how we can make better decisions and handle tradeoffs; a much valued skill in the workforce as well. Indeed, the framework laid out in the book has been surprisingly beneficial to both my personal and professional life. As a structural engineer, I find myself much better-off making decisions in the face of incomplete information. And I find myself much more capable of identifying things that matters to me, and things that are of minor importance.
When people have no choice, life is almost unbearable. As the number of available choices increases, as it has in our consumer culture, the autonomy, control, and liberation this variety brings are powerful and positive. But as the number of choice keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates.
The first chapter of the book starts by the author describing his latest trip to the grocery store:
Scanning the shelves, I found 85 different varieties and brands of crackers […] Some had sodium, others didn’t. Some were fat-free, others weren’t. They came in normal size and bite size. […] Across the aisle were juices - 13 “sports drinks,” 65 “box drinks” for kids, 85 other flavors and brands of juice, 75 iced teas and adult drinks. […] In the snack aisle, there were 95 options in all - chips, taco and potato, ridged and flat, flavored and unflavored, salted and unsalted, high fat, low fat, no fat, pretzels, and the likes. […]
Schwartz continues laboriously:
In the pharmaceutical aisles, I found 61 varieties of suntan oil and sunblock, 80 different pain relievers […] 40 options for toothpaste, 150 lipsticks, 75 eyeliners, and 90 colors of nail polish from one brand alone. […] 116 kinds of skin cream, and 360 types of shampoo, conditioner, gel, and mousse […] 29 different chicken soups […] 16 varieties of instant mashed potatoes, 75 instant gravies, 120 pasta sauces, 175 different salad dressings 16 of which were “Italian” dressings.
The introduction can be read as a celebration of capitalism, or an embodiment of everything anxiety-inducing for us more neurotic folks. The fact of the matter is, this explosion of options permeates every aspect of our lives, not just grocery shopping. The world has transformed from one of scarcity to one of overwhelming abundance. More than ever before, we are prone to regrets, sense of missed opportunities, counterfactuals. “What if I had chosen differently? Am I missing out? Am I making the best decision I possibly can?”
You may not be the type of person to stress over what toothpaste to buy, but what about more important purchases like a smartphone or a laptop? What about important life decisions like which college to attend? Which major to study? Who to befriend? Who to marry?
Rather than being content and marvel at the possibilities, we concern ourselves with status, social perception. We compare ourselves to others and allow our happiness to be sapped empty. And perhaps most importantly, we desire to have the best of everything, to maximize every aspect of our lives.
In this age of self-determinism and individual will, few would argue that we exercise tremendous control over our own lives. With the overwhelming abundance of options and information at our fingertips, it would not be unreasonable to assume we are in the golden age of human possibility.
Maximizer and Satisficer
The author makes a distinction between two types of individuals:
We are all maximizers in one area or another. Presented with such bountifulness, it seems only reasonable to try to optimize. With the magic of Google, we can obtain terabyte of information through our fingertips. How many times have you searched things like: “best college for engineering, best law school, top 5 hike trails, best running shoes, best smartphone under $500, best this, best that….” We try our best to optimize not only because we want to, but also because we have more resources to do so.
Unfortunately, it’s never that simple. Only rarely is one option clearly better than the rest. Missed opportunities are inevitable, tradeoffs necessary. The very act of deciding means forgoing other options of value.
Unlike other negative emotions - anger, sadness, disappointment, even grief - what is so difficult about regret is the feeling that the regrettable state of affairs could have been avoided.
More often than not, we decide not to decide, hoping future information will avail us of potential regrets. This is known as “analysis paralysis”. We find ourselves paralyzed. “This is complicated, I’ll decide next week”. Except next week the choice is just as complicated and life just as busy. Ironically, the more effort you put into the endeavor, the higher your expectation will be, and the more likely you’ll be disappointed. As it turns out, having too many choices can produce tremendous psychological distress.
Here we are, living at the pinnacle of human possibility, awash in material abundance. […] we have achieved what our ancestor could only dream about […] only to discover that what we want doesn’t satisfy us […] We are free to be the authors of our own lives, but we don’t know exactly what kind of lives we want to write.
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. - Albert Camus
Everything in life is a choice, every second of every day, we are making decisions that will ultimately dictate our life’s trajectory. Human existence then, is defined by the series of choices we make.
When seniors are asked what they regret most when looking back on their lives, by far the most common response is related to a “failure to act”. In the short run, we regret bad decisions. In the long run, we regret missed opportunities
Folks are about as happy as they made up their minds to be - Abraham Lincoln (allegedly)
We might all agree that social comparison and excessive positional competition is stressful, even wasteful. But it seems all to inevitable. We are all pulled into a rat race in pursuit of positional goods.
Parents wanting only the best for their child encourage them to study hard in order to get into a good college, but everyone else is doing that. So they sign up for tutoring and afterschool enrichment programs, but everyone is also doing that. So now they borrow money to get into a private school, hire trainers to train their youngsters in music and sports, but everyone follows. In the end, the poor child is so tortured by parental aspiration while not being better off than any other child.
It is like a movie theater where the first row stands up to get a better view, so the second row does the same, and a chain reaction follows. Soon enough, everyone in the theater is on their feet, but no one’s position has relatively improved. The only losers in this whole debacle are the ones who refuse to stand up. To choose not to stand is to lose.
Choose when to choose - Focus your time on choices that really matter to you, and let other opportunities pass by. Try to establish rule of thumb for trivial things. Make rules about when to decide. If buckling your seat-belt, or brushing your teeth is a rule, you don’t have to decide, it just has to be done. Following rules eliminates some of the more troublesome minor choices in your daily life
Practice, what are things you care about? - Practice and introspection is needed. You must decide what things you really care about. Some important decisions should rightly take great amount of time and attention; but this need not extend to everything
Maximize less, learn to accept good enough - Satisfice more, maximize less. Learn to accept good enough. Admittedly this will be difficult to embrace. It is tempting to imagine how you could have done better. Instead, focus on how your decision has positively affected your life. It’s simply impossible to maximize everything
Limit how much we think about missed opportunities - It is impossible not to compare alternatives. But realize that missed opportunity is inevitable. They more you think about other options, the less satisfaction you will gain from the choice you eventually make. Try to limit your tendency to think about attractive features of the options we rejected
Make decisions irreversible - The psychological distress seems to be lessened if we make our decisions final
Yes, the grass is always greener […] Inevitably, you will encounter people who are younger, better looking, funnier, smarter or seemingly more understanding and empathetic than your wife or husband. But finding a life partner is not a matter of comparison shopping and “trading up”. The only way to find happiness and stability in the presence of seemingly more attractive and tempting options is to say “I am simply not going there. I’ve made my decision about a life partner, so this person’s empathy or that person’s looks really have nothing to do with me” […] Knowing whether or not you could have done better is a prescription for misery.”
Gratitude journal - Rather than focusing on the negatives (what you’ve missed), focus on the positive (what you’ve gained). Unfortunately, gratitude does not come naturally. Try to keep a journal by your bedside and write down 3 things that you were pleased with that day. Slowly you will train your mind to be grateful and appreciate the many joys of life.
Regret less. Look forward - Life is complex. Although we tend think a single decision altered our entire life trajectory, that is often not the case. Look forward, you did the best you can at the time.
He often muttered “if only I had gone….”. The simple fact is that he might have gone away to the school of his dreams and have been hit by a bus, he might have flunked out, or simply felt out of place and hated it. But what I’ve always wanted to point out to him is that he made the decision he made for a variety of complex reasons inherent in who he was as a young man
Beware of adaption - Manage your dopamine level and practice gratitude
Control and lower expectation - Our evaluation of an experience is substantially affected by how it compares to our expectation. Expect nothing, and you’ll never be disappointed.
Curtail social comparison - You are doing yourself a great disservice comparing yourself to others. Although it is easier said than done, one should remember that comparison is the thief of joy. There are many millions of people who are better off than you, and many billions of people who are worse off. Rather than anchoring your happiness with a sense of status and positional competition, understand yourself. Focus on what makes you happy and gives you meaning
Embrace constraints - In our unique circumstance, living in a world of plenty, we should learn to appreciate constraint as liberating rather than constraining
Choice within constraints, freedom within limits, is what enables the little fish to imagine a host of marvelous possibilities
Lastly, Do not attach your identity to your decisions.
Even decisions as trivial as renting a video become important if we believe that these decisions are revealing something significant about ourselves.