The Paradox Of Choice
Tags: Choices, Anxiety, Decision Making, Stress, Decisions

All of Western industrial society is built on the ideologue that maximizing the welfare of citizens is achieved through maximizing individual freedom. The thought behind this is that individual freedom can let us act on our own and then we can decide on our own welfare and no one has to make decisions for us — autonomy. According to this ideologue, the way to maximize freedom is by maximizing choice and my god do we have choices now — but at what cost?

Our modern lives are filled with choices and it can’t be stressed enough how much of an understatement that is. We have infinite choices when it comes to purchasing even the most menial things such as toothpaste or salad dressing or less menial ones such as phones clothes. It’s not only material things that offer us an excess of choices, but we also have infinite choices when it comes to insurance plans, holiday destinations and even marriage and relationships — Tinder got us wondering about all the other potential dates in our phone while we are on a tinder date itself. And let’s not forget about work and career. We now have the means to be working at every waking moment from any corner of the world, so the question that’s always at the back of our minds now — should we be working right now?

What all of these infinite possibilities have resulted in, paradoxically, is paralysis. Yes, all these choices that were supposed to free us are now paralyzing us. We’ve become so unable to make decisions, that we persistently put off making decisions.

Even when we manage to overcome this grip and manage to make a decision, we end up more dissatisfied by our choice than we would be if we had fewer options.

When we end up dissatisfied by our choice, because of the infinite options that were at our disposal, it’s easy to imagine what could have been. Even if it were a good decision, this imagined alternative invokes regret that causes dissatisfaction in your choice.

Opportunity cost subtracts satisfaction from what we choose even when what we choose is terrific. We are always at the risk missing out on something awesome, even when what we have going on is pretty awesome.

Escalation of expectation — with so many choices available for any given thing, our expectations have skyrocketed. If there are 100 options, one of them has got to be perfect, right? It’s impossible to be pleasantly surprised anymore, at best you’ll get things as good as you expect them to be.

Finally, self- blame. It’s horrible and it’s a side-effect of having endless options. When you have fewer options and you end up dissatisfied and you ask yourself who’s responsible, the answer is simple — the world is. What could you have done? But when you have infinite choices and you end up dissatisfied and you ask yourself who’s responsible, the answer is simple — you are. You should have chosen that other thing. With that many options available, failure can’t be an option. You got it wrong. It’s your fault.

So while some choice is better than none, having all the choices is just bad. And boy, do I get paralyzed by choices — saying no to every restaurant someone recommends but then fail to pick one myself, browse through the Netflix homepage for hours and then not watch anything or pick something off the menu and then beat myself up for not picking that other thing. It’s horrible. What makes these dilemmas even worse is they are not crucial life decisions — there are no real consequences. So that’s what I’ve been trying to remind myself when I find myself fazed by these menial choices — they don’t matter, so I shouldn’t over-assess them. If I get my order for dinner wrong, the results won’t be catastrophic and there will always be another dinner where I can get it right, so might as well just enjoy what I ordered this time.