Choices, Choices, Choices....Why More is not Always Better

Have you ever thought about how many choices you make in one day? I just finished reading The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. This book discusses how everyday decisions have become so complex for us due to the abundance of choices that we can choose from. He talks about how more is not always better though, because we begin to have unrealistic expectations about things, and all these options can be overwhelming an detrimental to our emotional health.

This past weekend I traveled up to Seattle for a fashion show. During some of my free time, I went with some of my friends to shop downtown. One of the first places we stopped was Nordstrom's. With the Paradox of Choice in mind, I came to realize that the size and variety of the store was somewhat overwhelming, but not because I was new to this. I grew up in the big city of Denver, and am used to big department stores. It was because of how many choices there were for each department. While my friends shopped in the shoe department, I decided to head over to the makeup department to grab some new foundation. When I got over there, I was overwhelmed by all of the options. Not only were there more than 20 different brands, but each brand had on average 10 different shades of color. On top of that, there were liquid and powder options. I didn't even know where to start. I tried comparing different brands to each other to see if I would like one more than the other. I began to think about how easy it would be if there was just one brand, with a medium, light, and dark shade. I started to look at lipstick too, but again, overall there had to be over 100 different options. Finally, I gave up and decided to get what I normally get back in Bozeman. I went back over to the shoe department to join my friends. Even in this department, I noticed the wide variety of options. From boots to sandals to flats to high heels to tennis shoes, there were over 100 different styles. Looking at heels alone, there were dress heels, heeled booties, wedges, and stilettos. And of course there were tons of different colors and patterns for each style. I started to think about how I was ever able to choose just one or even two or three pairs at a time. The choices seemed endless in my mind.

It's amazing how many choices are presented to us every day. In the society that we live in, we value individualism. We encourage people to be different and throw as many choices at them as we can to give them the power of choice. But what if we didn't have these options? For example, what if we had one pair of shoes for work, one for physical activity, and one for dressing up? Personally, I own over 40 pairs of shoes, and around 10 of these are boots alone. I couldn't imagine having only 4 pairs to choose from each day. But it would make making my decision a lot easier and lower my expectations. Having so many choices is certainly a tradeoff. We are programmed to think "the more choices, the better". However, the more choices that are presented to us, the harder it is to make our overall decision, and the more time we spend contemplating that decision. More is not always better.