The Tyranny of Choice — And my quest out of it
It had been a crazy day at work. Miriam’s boss had asked her to whip up a presentation for tomorrow’s meeting with management. “Dazzle me”, had been her exact words. While Miriam was entirely familiar with all the latest design trends they had looked at, picking out one for management to see was terrifying. Picking the wrong one might result in her getting fired. “What would I want to do if I got fired?”. Trying to do the job perfectly had took all of her energy, so whenever she had any spare time, she never could figure out what she wanted to do. How to make the most of her time. What she wanted to do wit her li…
“Learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder. And learning to choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder still, perhaps too hard.” ― Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
The above short story attempts to capture only a fraction of the choices one might face on a day to day basis. As an entrepreneur the amount of choices I’ve had to make both for myself and my employees have sometimes left me paralyzed. I’m an entrepreneur because I can’t accept the status quo. Because I long for the freedom of choice. But I’m also often terrified of making the wrong choices. This fear has been even more prevalent now that I’m closing in on my thirties. Though I’m still young I already feel regret about some of the choices I’ve made. And I feel even more pressure to make the “right” choices. The most pathetic case of this is when I recently tried playing a RPG videogame again. I’ve always had a tendency to try and maximise my performance when I play. But this time I gave up starting the game, after scouring the internet for the “Best Class” in the game for two hours.
Well, I’ve had enough. So I did what I do best. I started researching ways to stop looking at life and start living it instead. To me it has been much harder than it sounds. Had I lived a 100 years ago my life would probably have been planned out for me. But having abundance of choice in our lives is not going to change anytime soon. So teaching myself to live with it seemed like the only way to proceed. This first lead me to meditation and mindfulness.
Mindfulness
With mindfulness comes the promise of the ability to simply accept things for what they are. As was probably the case for many, I was initially a skeptic. And when I first heard about it years ago I didn’t understand and accept it’s premise: That my “overanalyzing” was holding me back. Potentially making me unhappy. It wasn’t until a few months ago that my pain was big enough for me to face my skepticism. So i downloaded Headspace and set out on their “Take 10 journey”. The results weren’t immediately obvious. But I’ve found that just the breathing exercise alone has enabled me to control both my mind and my pulse whenever it starts racing. And after having used it for some time, I rarely need it anymore. It has taken the anxiety out of making choices and removed the following doubt after having made one.
However, while I stopped fretting about whether I was doing the “right” thing at any given time I still struggled choosing what to focus on in the first place. Mindfulness have enabled me to enjoy playing video games, reading books, going for a walk and watching a movie again. But journaling is what is helping me figure out where I want to go.
Journaling
As with meditation, I’ve always been skeptical as to the benefits of journaling. My sister did it extensively when she was younger. She usually sang about her day while doing it. I laughed at it at the time. But it’s only now that I realise she was instinctively offloading her thoughts. Her choices at the time usually involved what to wear, who to hang out with and how to satisfy our mother’s expectations. But these very same issues are still resulting in both anxiety and stress in children in primary school. But once you leave the cradle of childhood the amount of choices increase significantly. So taking a cue from my younger sister, I started writing. To me it has become my own personal “coach”. Though my diary doesn’t yet talk back to me, I find that it creates a certain clarity and order to my thoughts. It has enabled me to flesh out what I want to focus on and how to approach it.
I’m far from done with my journey. I’m still learning and I’m still struggling. But I find that the meditation has given me a certain calmness. And my journaling has put my thoughts, desires and believes in row. So when I’m faced with a decision my mind is ready. And choices are something that I make instead of being something that controls me.
Do you ever feel burdened by too many choices? Tell me your thoughts here or on Twitter.
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