You Can Never Know the True Value of the Alternative
because, at some point, you’re going to have to choose
As children, when life-choices are often limited, we view the world in a definite palette of black and white.
As we grow up and the boundaries of our freedom expand, the varying shades of grey can transform us into indecisive wrecks. We have the ability to think ahead of time, projecting ourselves into different scenarios and pathways that could have been taken. Our minds can turn a simple choice into a havoc of infinite forks.
Some of these forks are positive while others stick to our thoughts like spilled glue.
But the thing about choices is that you will never know the true value of the alternative — because the alternative will never materialize. Whatever value you put on it is only speculation.
According to American psychologist Barry Schwartz, we suffer from the ability to experience happiness when the ideation of choice is introduced.
Like his fellow psychologists David Myers and Robert Lane, who also theorizes on the measurement of happiness, the more choices we perceive ourselves to have, the more miserable we become over time. The larger the gap between perceived outcome and our reality is the equation that determines our feeling…
