The good enough path

The research is clear, the more choices we have the worst we feel.

It’s interesting to think that 20 years ago, if you were told you can watch any televsion series, any movie, play any record at any place at any time–we would of said, “Yeah, I’ll take that deal.”

And yet, the amount of choices we have makes it so overwhelming to what to do next. We all have been victims of Netflix scrolling.

This idea that opportunity cost, that I could be doing something better, bleeds into our psyche. We don’t want to get it wrong and so we suffer instead of being satisfied with the choice of A or B. Make no mistake having an abundance of choice is a good thing. Especially, when we compare it to those who are robbed of any choice. (And I am not simply talking about entertainment.)

The world is now full of access to choice on where to live, who to date, what to pay attention too, and so on, we forget that wasn’t what it was just a mere two decades ago. It is also making us miserable in search of best or perfect instead of good or better.

We all want is best but when scrolling to find a partner is that this person over here might be 5% better and leads to an ecosystem where 90% of the dating activity is for 10% of the men, then there is a problem. When someone can with a few clicks apply for 40 jobs in one day, then we are not looking for meaningful work, we are spamming for it. And when you can’t decide what to eat tonight on Door Dash, because you are paralyzed with the amount of places we could eat, well the trade-off is to go hungry.

No one then is happy.

We overcomplicate these decisions, when simply flipping a coin and have fate decide can often be enough to make us happy.