Somewhere along the way, modern life sold us a very seductive lie. More choices supposedly means better life.
More jeans, more shows, more people, more everything. Somewhere out there is the perfect pair of jeans, the ideal tuesday night Netflix binge, and obviously your one and only soulmate who also loads the dishwasher correctly.
All you have to do is choose.
Except now you’re 47 tabs deep, three carts abandoned, and somehow watching a show you don’t even like because committing to something better felt like emotional labor.
Enter psychologist Barry Schwartz, who basically looked at this buffet of modern life and noted that we are not happier. We are overwhelmed. His work, including The Paradox of Choice. shows that too many options don’t liberate us. They paralyze us. We second-guess. We optimize. We imagine the better version we didn’t pick. And suddenly, even a good choice feels like a missed opportunity.
Because when everything is possible, nothing feels right.
It’s not just shopping. It’s social lives. Dating. Careers. Identity. We’re all out here trying to curate the best possible life like it’s a Spotify playlist, and instead we’re exhausted, mildly dissatisfied, and wondering if we chose wrong.
Meanwhile, past me who just bought whatever jeans were on sale and watched whatever was on TV at 8pm was weirdly fine?
So yes, I now have a weekly grocery order. The same one. Every week. Minimal drama. Zero existential crisis in the produce aisle. Honestly? It feels like a small act of rebellion.
Now if I could just apply that same discipline to shoes.
Because apparently I believe there is, in fact, a perfect pair out there. And I will find them. Or die trying.
Categories: mental health, Psychology, Pop Culture, Culture, identity, society
psychologistmimi 
I remember being in a staples with my wife, she is from Brazil. We were in the isle that had pens, pencils, any writing instrument. After 10 minutes I said “it’s a pen, grab one and let’s go. What’s taking so long” She said the choices, there are too many. In Brazil you have a small section maybe a few feet square not 20+ isle in length on both side with pens. I like living in Brazil, life is simpler.
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This is so true. More choices just feel exhausting after a point. Interesting read!
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I whittle down choices, it makes for an easier life.
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Indeed Dear Miriam a Modernity of ‘Options’
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and
look around once in a while, you could miss it”
-‘Ferris Bueller’
‘A Day Off’ On
oF Free Creativity
in the 80’s in the
Land of Cable TV
Where MTV was only
5 Years-Old yep in 1986
When Zuckerberg was 2 Years-Old
And the First mass marketed Micro-Computer
the ‘Lisa’ By Apple only 3 Years Old on the Scene
of what
was soon to Be
EVEN MORE DISTRACTIONS
away from the reality that Human Beings
Like Other Animals are evolved to Focus on
One Task Far Beyond ‘ADHD Land’ for it is True
Take Your Focus and Attention Span off the Detail
of the Prey and the Larger Horizon View of the Potential
Predator
Or Oncoming
Car While Texting these
Days and Perhaps You Don’t
Get to Live as Long as Focus
And Attention Span on One Task
Brings to the Surface of Life Deeper
Than a Thousand
Paper Cuts of
DistractionS
Far Away from
What Human PotentialS
May Other Wise Bring Dear Miriam
This iS A Way i Look at it “Twist and Shout”
Make Your Own Parade Just Dance and Sing Free
And Follow the Do of ‘Forrest Gump’ Be the Feather Be the
Wind Be Free and after You Get Good at Cleaning Your Gun
And Playing Ping Pong and Meeting Famous Folks When it
Was ‘Legal’ to Wade in a ‘Reflecting Pool’ to Reach Out and Touch Humanity
Have a Story
to Tale the
Health Professional
At the Bus Stop in New
York for It’s True You Didn’t
Die
with
TL;DR
as she focuses
on Her Magazine
as She Pleases hehe…
It’s Like when my Wife asks me
Which One of 518 Public Dancing
T-Shirts i am going to wear Next
as the 24,124 Miles of Public Dance
in 154 Months and 16.1 MiLLioN Words
in 155 Months of EPiC Long Form Poem ‘SonG
oF mY SoUL’ Continues additionally in a Meditative
FLoW iN EPiC way Never more than one Move
of Holy Dance and one Word of Sacred Song
New
Now
or
Then
Yes i dance sing i’ll dive right into a River
of Differently Culturally Memed Dance
T-Shirts in 2 Closets and One Will
Surely Grab My Attention for a New
Day of Focus
And Attention
Span in Fresh
iMaGiNaTioN
And Creativity Now
as i’ll ‘Twist and Shout’
And Carry my Parade Free
Just Dancing Singing in the Rain New
Hehe if Tropical Storm Bertha Makes it too…
It’s all a New Adventure it’s a Surprise to Explore Now
And It Helps When You are Financially Independent Naked
Enough Whole Complete Never again to fall to Be Manipulated
to
miss Life
For ‘The Man’
Nothing to Add
or Subtract Yep
Still Sprouting Green
Without the ‘Soylent’ Part
Yuck Dam Sure not the
‘Orange Man Meme’ hehe…
And on top of that i’m NOT
A Fictional AI Movie Trailer i Breathe
Newly Now
No Plans
Far beyond
Avatars of
only Words too
With
SMiLes..:)
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We’re living in a world where people outsource their decision making to the Internet where they find at best contradictory and at worst downright dangerous advice
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