Paradox of Choice. How Many is Too Many?

When your options become overwhelming.

The paradox of choice is a funny phenomenon. To think there is such a thing as too many options in this world where everyone loves having options is sort of cruel. We enjoy the ability to choose for ourselves, so the less options we feel we have, we deem it as a negative. Why choose one pair of shoes when I see four pairs that I like? This or that shirt? Why not both? It could cost more of our money or even more of our time. However, that matters none if we think we have the choice to make for ourselves.

How many is too many?

Options are bountiful in all aspects of life. When it comes to clothing, cars, food, the list is endless. What should we eat? What should we watch? What should we do? All of these choices to choose and we say we love every moment of it. How much is too much? When you eat too much food, your body has a built in system to let you know to stop eating, despite what’s still in front of you. Your tummy hurts and your brain says stop and you stop. Well you’re supposed to. When this system is overridden multiple times this is when we gain weight. Your bank account has no upper limit but it does have a zero limit. When you spend all your money the bank has a system that penalizes you for spending too much. Everything in nature has some sort of max capacity that prevents too much of anything from happening. Humans have evolved to change this aspect for ourselves. Nothing seems like too much for any of us. Until we run into paralysis analysis. This is when we are mentally and physically overwhelmed by the amount of options before us. When this option paralysis occurs we tend to default and not even make a choice. So it seems that we have to overflow our capacity to be stopped in our tracks. How can we mitigate our options before we reach our, or even break, our threshold?

Cost-benefit analysis

I learned in middle school the idea of cost-benefit when it comes to making decisions. You weigh out the good and bad with a big decision and this will let you know how to move forward. This makes me think of the saying, “common sense isn’t so common.” To make a cost to benefits comparison you have to have the wherewithal to list the good and bad of this one choice. Despite learning this in school, many people have trouble going through this process. Most of us, even me at times, will move off of impulse. This is where the world is now, where we all act first and think later, and this can cause many issues with finances and our relationships with others. Analyzing anything before acting on it can save us all a world of hurt. We have a process going viral like the three day rule. The three day rule is when you want to buy something, but you make yourself wait three days to buy it. The idea is that you are reducing the impulse to buy the thing by creating space between seeing it and buying it. Usually you will forget about it if you don't go back and buy it after living your life for a few days. Think about the last time you stopped yourself from buying something you know you didn’t need. I’ll go further and say, if you have to convince yourself to buy it, then you definitely don't need it. 

A win-lose situation

Making a decision doesn’t have to suck. The thing or action you choose to partake in doesn’t have to feel like compromise. Slimming down your options can be your choice and it’s okay that you can’t have everything all at once. Compromise usually comes across as a win-lose situation. If we can’t get exactly what we want from the scenario then it won't feel fulfilling. This is not the case every time. You can make a decision and feel whole in doing so. If you compare the dilemma of having to make a hard decision for yourself, or having someone else make that decision for you, how would you truly feel? In any condition, you can produce a win-win scenario. If you can’t buy both pairs of shoes today, buy one pair and come back and get the other pair in two weeks. In this world we live in now, it’s rare that you can’t return to the things you previously wanted. Even if you have to wait a little longer, you can enjoy the excitement that you will still receive your blessing. 

Let go of what if

Following the last idea, letting go of what could’ve been is dire to the paradox of having too many choices. The moment you choose to go one way, you must fully commit to that path and leave the other path to the past. We tend to harm ourselves by harping on the “loss” of the other option. Decisions can be hard. However you shouldn’t mourn the fact that you didn’t make a different decision. Even if the choice was something of an ultimatum, something in you told you to make that decision. Although rare, there are times we admit that we made the wrong decision, and you could only know that by first making that decision and moving forward. Most likely, the case is that we are ecstatic with the decision we made and the outcome is heartwarming. As long as your scenarios turn out more like the latter than the former, then you are doing great. 

The paradox of choice grabs ahold of all of us. We can do ourselves a favor by slimming down what options we have to choose from in life as much as possible. Have a few go-to restaurants. Have a couple shows in rotation or genre of movie you like. See clothes online and save them for later. Go in the store if possible and try it on first, maybe you'll see something else you'd like more. Creating less options for yourself isn’t prison. It’s actually more freeing to know that you can make decisions quickly and trust that you made the right one. For the next decision you have to make, put your thinking cap on and be free.  

-J