Would your life be easier/better/more fulfilling if you didn't have so many choices?

Keeping it simple is a good way to live.I have a big choice ahead of me that offers two options but is just as hard as one with too many options.

Life it so unnecessarily complicated to a point of dull confused disconnect over what is important in ones life. Ask anyone what life is all about and you get test patterns in their eyes. SIMPLIFY!!!

Not mine, that may work for people in places like arkansas, but there’s too much on the earth to disregard it all.

There could be another much better choice than the one we had now. I can’t think to live without choices in my life. It makes me think and consider which one is the best for me and I don’t have to ended up with one single choice(if it’s a bad/unsatisfied choice).

One of the reasons I chose a military career. I didn’t have to decide what to wear each day. I’m now living somewhat like Thoreau did, a cabin in the woods next to a pond. Which plaid LL Bean shirt do I wear today? I refuse to give up my espresso machine though.

I don’t mean to sound rude, but it scares me that anyone could actually think this.

Don’t be intellectually lazy. Its hard work to know what is right for you, but you and only you can make that choice.

You are rude. You don’t know me. You’re pretense is embarrassing.

I like having a myriad of good choices available to me, but feel that if I am only offered a bunch of bad choices to choose from I may prefer to have no choice at all. For example, many people run in an election, but I always vote for the “least worst” candidate, not the best. Voting is more for show at this point, so perhaps people would wake up and demand better if there simply were no choice rather than a long list of bad ones.

When information that I consider vital to making a good decision is mysteriously unavailable or unnecessarily hard to find, it annoys me to no end. Clothing sizing, shampoo chemistry, for example are both deliberately complicated to confuse consumers. In this way, the market is so diluted with choices that it becomes increasingly complicated and difficult to make a good one.

I think alleviation of the dissatisfaction that appears to be caused by an overwhelming number of available choices comes down more to my mode of thinking. In my experience, I have felt more fulfilled when focusing on truly living in the present moment and feeling whatever feelings that moment brings. When I do that the anxiety of some better option existing somewhere, which it almost surely does for anyone in any aspect of their life, disappears. When I live in the moment I make better choices and gain greater satisfaction from them.

And, I always try to remind myself of how lucky I am.

@tinyfaery It just scares me that you could think that. Thinking that choices are bad leads people to want to reduce choices. If you only reduce the choices for yourself I am fine with that, but often people reduce the choices for everyone. This is where I have problems.

@jackm We don’t have piles of choices because we choose. I can’t run out and choose to make all the decisions I have to make throughout my life go away. He/she is merely suggesting that we might be equally satisfied with fewer choices as we are with many.

To answer the question, I don’t think it makes a lot of difference how many choices we have, since you’re going to disregard most of them anyway by eliminating them down to what appeals to you.

Often times I think it’s the illusion of choice that makes us have regret about the choices we didn’t make. I could have gone away to college at my dream school, but really, I couldn’t have. I love my girlfriend and wouldn’t leave her, and I got into a perfectly good college locally. That, you might say is a choice, but it wasn’t really a choice. I was admitted to both, but I also had to weigh in personal taste, my financial situation, and how far that puts me from the people I love—these external factors make decisions like these less of a choice. Temptation might rule the moment, but ultimately I’m going to choose to stay.

And to be entirely truthful, life is simpler—we make choices based on those choices which we acknowledge, that we are aware of. For all I know, I would absolutely love the lifestyle I would live in Topeka, Kansas, but I’ve never been to Topeka or Kansas, so I wouldn’t know. I chose between the places that I present to myself as opportunities, like the primate cities that stand out in my mind from the media, like New York, or the cities that I’ve been to and have grown fond of. There are plenty of other choices out there, and there are too many to regret the ones you made later when you discover a seemingly better one. If you accept that you’re never making a 100% informed and complete decision, you can sit much happier with what you’ve got, and sometimes even discover that these decisions aren’t the ones that matter the most, but the ones you make about who you are and who you decide to share your life with.

I wish I lived in Europe where there is not long long aisles of choices!! With food, the more choices you have the more calories you consume.
I would like to have to go back to the butcher, the milk man, the bakery and the farmers market. I think we would live a lot healthier then!
I think I need to stop now. I took an ambien about ½ and hour ago and I might just embarrass myself.

Absolutely. In fact some sociologists theorize that choice overload increases the rate of depression significantly. Here’s a wonderful book on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More-Less/dp/0060005696/

“Schwartz, drawing extensively on his own work in the social sciences, shows that a bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us. We normally assume in America that more options will make us happier, but Schwartz shows the opposite is true, arguing that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being. Part research summary, part introductory social sciences tutorial, part self-help guide, this book offers concrete steps on how to reduce stress in decision making.”

“We can learn from reading this book that we should all strive to be satisficers rather maximizers. A satisficer is a person who chooses a product or service that is good enough. A maximizer is a person who is always trying to get the best product. A satisficer is usually happy with their choice. In contrast, a maximizer isn’t happy and often regrets what they bought.”

@Judi – This really depends on the store. There are many stores in Europe which offer as many different products as the large ones in the US.

Bakeries in Germany offer at least 10 times more types of bread as the US. Same for sausage. Same for cheese. Same for beer. Same for wine.

Same in France. Same in Italy.

It’s somewhat different in Eastern Europe.

There are clearly some benefits to having an array of choices, but there is a serious downside as well. Every choice between competing alternatives puts you in the position of examining your preferences. In a culture of choice, like the American consumer paradise, we spend a good bit of our lives sifting through our likes and dislikes.

This exercise, so often repeated over so many years, shapes our minds. It focuses our attention on ourselves, because our preferences—our likes and dislikes—are a fundamental part of our egos. It fosters discontent, because it makes us second guess our choices and conditions us to believe that there’s got to be something better out there, rather that just making do with “good enough”.

Plus, it creates a ubiquitous marketing environment that constantly makes appeals to our egos. We’re forever being told how we deserve better, and should not be satisfied with what we have. All of this fosters a mindset that puts “me” and “my wants” at the center of the world.

Brilliant answer @Harp. Thank you.

@mattbrowne ; at least you wise folks in Europe have to WALK and think about it instead of mindlessly roaming the aisles filling your basket with high calorie, low nutrition junk.
I love the idea of having “specialty” stores. If I need meat, go to the meat store, if I need bread go to the bread store. It would keep me out of the frozen and processed food aisles and I would have to be more mindful of what I’m eating. I would also get more exercise, walking to all the different stores.
Who needs terrorists? Between supermarkets and fast food, America will kill itself!

@mattbrowne Thanks. I’ll get that book.

@Harp Like always, your answer has soothed me. You articulated my exact feelings.

@Judi – I think one of the reasons why aisles in the US are sometimes longer is higher-quantity packaging. On average American fridges are significantly larger than the European ones. Same for the trunk size of cars which means people buy more each time they go shopping. But in terms of product diversity I think sometimes there’s more choice in Europe (see examples above) and sometimes in the US for example for cereal and potato chips and frozen pizzas and types of soft drinks. So choice overload is a huge problem in Europe too.

Walking requires sidewalks. I’ve read that some American cities and towns are changing their strategy to better fight obesity.