The Paradox of Choice Why More Is Less
Reviews
3.5 stars. I read a lot of similar books, so the first 3/4 of the book felt like a uninteresting recap of things I already know, citing studies I've already read. (If you read enough popular productivity/psychology stuff you learn everyone cites the same people). However, the last several chapters had some good points, and the very last chapter strategies on coping with choice. 1/2 star for those. If you're skeptical of his premise, go ahead and read this. If you already have a grip on our society's curse of decision fatigue and want a book in this realm, I'd suggest Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman, or for a less clinical and more practical option, Decisive by Chip & Dan Heath.
Great book, really enjoyed it. A lot of things to think about. Take a look on Barry's TED Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwar...
This book hit me at the right time. It describes how the happiness goes in a U-curve following the number of options you have, at first more options is great as it leads to competition and better outcomes, but at a certain point the number of options can be so overwhelming that trying to find the best one causes you more stress than is worth it. TL;DR is: go for the suboptimal choice, one that you can be satisfied with and stick with it. Don’t try to go for ‘the best’ because there is no such thing, not for everyone.
Narrow your choices. Avoid social comparison. Focus on getting “good enough” things. These are the main rules you need to follow in the 21st century. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz visualizes how our lives are controlled by the ever-expanding pile of options. How our minds are shutting off when faced with a gazillion of variations and how we’re feeling less and less satisfied with what products we allow in our lives. Most notably, Barry Schwartz explains how, since everything is practically created and available, we’re responsible if we don’t succeed. After all, there is a tool nowadays for everything. So, if we’re still lacking a big house and a nice car, this means that we failed somewhere along the way. That our career choice, or whom to marry, was not the best pick. Knowing these insights, we usually choose not to choose in terms of doing a positive change in our lives. Instead of admitting that we failed somewhere along the way, and doing something about this, we fill our heads with pleasant stories. We hide from the world, and we settle for being passive consumers. Hoping, that more things will lead to more happiness. Alas, this never happens. Acquiring more things leads to an annoying desire to get even more. It’s a never-ending cycle. Liberation can only emerge from controlling your expectations and the number of options you expose yourself to. The key takeaway: Curing yourself of personal misery caused by the pursuit of the “perfect life” is possible only if you lower your expectations and allow yourself to fail without regret. Read full review: https://durmonski.com/book-summaries/...
Highlights
To not care for them when they are in need is not merely a lack of charity; it is injustice. Put bluntly: If you have things your neighbor doesn't have, share them, because he or she has a right to the part of the world over which God has made temporary steward.
Part of the downside of abundant choice is that each new option adds to the list of trade-offs, and trade-offs have psychological consequences. The necessity of making trade-offs alters how we feel about the decisions we face; more important, it affects the level of satisfaction we experience from the decisions we ultimately make.
Away of easing the burden that freedom of choice imposes is to make decisions about when to make decisions. These are what Cass Sunstein and Edna Ullmann-Margalit call second-order decisions. One kind of second-order decision is the decision to follow a rule.
Economist and historian Albert Hirschman, in his book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, suggested that people have two general classes of responses available when they are unhappy. They can exit the situation, or they can protest and give voice to their concerns.
But, as Lane put it very simply, in addition to the other factors contributing to our modern malaise: ‘There are too many life choices...without concern for the resulting overload...and the lack of constraint by custom...that is, demands to discover or create an identity rather than to accept a given identity.’
Most religious institutions call on their members to live their lives in a certain way and to take responsibility for the well-being of their fellow congregants. So, counterintuitive as it may appear, what seems to contribute most to happiness binds us rather than liberates us. How can this notion be reconciled with the popular belief that freedom of choice leads to fulfilment?
… money doesn't matter as much as you might think. Once a society's level of per capita wealth crosses a threshold from poverty to adequate subsistence, further increases in national wealth have almost no effect on happiness.
To avoid the escalation of such burdens, we must learn to be selective in exercising our choices. We must decide, individually, when choice really matters and focus our energies there, even if it means letting many other opportunities pass us by. The choice of when to be a chooser may be the most important choice we have to make.
Instead of thinking, ’Should I choose this or that?’, think: ‘Should I even be choosing?’