If it weren’t for the strong wind, I would be sitting outside right now rather than in front of a computer screen. 70 degrees! We had rain this morning, but sun this afternoon. I puttered around the house changing some of my decorations around trying to get a more spring-like feel. I bought some pansies last weekend knowing they wouldn’t mind too much if the air got a little frosty.
Most of us enjoy having choices of how we decorate our home or dress or what we eat and so on. However, our culture, especially our consumer culture, overloads us with choices sometimes to the point of creating stress and anxiety. Barry Schwartz in his The Paradox of Choice presents two types of choosers: maximizers and satisficers.
Maximizers think they must make the “best” choice, and the way to do that is to seek out all of the choices and then decide. In a culture where there are loads of choices, that becomes impossible without creating distress. If a maximizer makes a choice without lots of research and shopping, she has regrets that there may be something better out there that she missed. She feels inadequate to the task of narrowing down the choices.
The satisficer seeks what is “good enough”. She had done enough research to set criteria and standards for her purchases and decisions, but as long as she finds something that is a good enough fit she drops the pursuit and makes the choice. Of course, nothing is perfect and one has to make trade-offs as to which criteria are essential and which are a bonus but unnecessary. The satisficer can compromise without regret. The maximizer cannot.
The interesting thing is that the most important factor in providing happiness is close social relations; but spending time making choices from a myriad of options actually decreases the time we have to spend on these relationships. A paradox is that though we think we want the freedom to make choices, it is actually making commitments (such as marriage which closes off options) that enhance our lives.
When people are presented with options involving trade-offs that create conflict, all choices start to look unappealing. Conflict induces people to avoid decisions. Counterfactual thinking (conjuring up an ideal scenario that doesn’t exist) leads to regret. We often choose the option that minimizes the chances of regret, even choosing not to act. Human beings are remarkably bad at predicting how various experiences will make them feel.
To lessen distress in making decisions, restrict the options under consideration by establishing rules-of-thumb or limits. Rely on habits, customs, norms to make decisions more automatic. Be realistic in one’s expectations. Don’t always be looking for the new and improved but stick with what works for you now. Practice an attitude of gratitude and appreciate the good in your life. Anticipate adaptation; the “thrill” will leave but learn to accept that the pleasure turns to comfort. Curtail social comparisons; focus on what makes you happy and gives meaning to your life. Learn to see boundaries and limits as ways to free time to explore opportunities within those limits to the fullest.
The good news is that as you grow older, the less likely you are to be a maximizer. Age and experience teach people to have realistic expectations and to be satisfied with “good enough”; to find happiness in social ties and not worry about choices in the other things of life.
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