Spoilt for Choice

Hi guys, it’s CJ. He at him-dot-com is having the day off today so you have me to serve up the food for thought (don’t worry, it’s all low-fat). It’s been just over a week since RYB in Melbourne and I hope that those of you who came along are having a great time (ok, maybe uncomfortable yet effective time) implementing what you learned on the day. Have an awesome week, everyone. On with the show …

Technical Difficulties

The other day, there was a minor disaster in the world of me. Yep, my hairdryer died. It was a rather theatrical departure for a bathroom appliance; the element glowed an alarming fiery red and then extinguished itself with an exaggerated hiss – rather like Othello’s dramatic final speech before he played “Geez, that’s sharp” with his dagger.

So, I decided to undertake some online research to find a replacement. Because I wouldn’t want to buy the hairdryer equivalent of a beta VCR would I? One hour and a hundred websites later, I was more confused than I was enlightened. Who knew there were so many options and features available in a hairdryer? Ionic? Ceramic? Turbo 3500? Seriously, am I buying a hairdryer or a sports car? And do I really need one that delivers 73 cubic metres of air per hour? What am I, a yak?

I almost gave up. My brain started to hurt. Or maybe that was from sitting at my desk with wet hair (rapidly frizzying into a 1980s poodle perm) on a cold winter’s morning.  Perhaps it would be easier to just wait for global warming to do the job. Sigh

Multiple Choice

In our (prosperous, consumer-driven) country, even something as simple as buying toilet paper can leave one standing immobile in the supermarket aisle like a flustered game-show contestant. Do I choose the soft quilted, arse-pampering variety or the sandpaper-like recycled (organic, wholemeal) stuff ? Which do I value more – my butt or the environment? Or is my butt part of the environment? Do I want my toilet paper perfumed (nice) or do I want the ‘sensitive’ hypoallergenic rolls in case a fibred-up anaphylactic visits unexpectedly? Standard length or double length? Patterned or plain? How would the kids cope if I came home empty-handed because I just couldn’t decide? I would have to impose a crapping ban until further notice. Or send them to Grandma’s. (She’s been buying the same lavender-printed stuff for years. Maybe she is smarter than me after all).

I’m not suggesting that we become all former-Soviet-Union about the whole thing because, of course, choice has its advantages. Variety can be fun and enticing (just ask Tiger Woods – actually, don’t) but perhaps having greater variety doesn’t necessarily lead to greater happiness. Radical concept, I know. Especially coming from someone who has twenty-one bottles of perfume in her bathroom and more shoes in her wardrobe than Madonna (is there a support group I should be joining?).

Just Choose One Already!

One of the first things I learnt as a mother (other than never tell a blabber-mouth four-year-old how much you weigh) is to not give a small child too many choices. It can overwhelm them. Actually, it can paralyse them. If you ask a child to go to their closet and choose something to wear, they could be eligible for their drivers’ license by the time they make a decision. Or come out looking like Superman’s not-quite-so-well-known cross-dressing brother. Nope, I learned the hard way to present a child with two choices and claim that all other options are ‘in the wash’.

Perhaps, sometimes, when we are presented with such a vast array of choices in life (course, career, home, partner, shoes), we become so anxious about making the ‘right’ choice that we end up making no choice at all. For years. We can’t decide which career would be best for us so we languish in an unsatisfying job. We can’t decide which suburb to buy a house in so we spend another three or four years ‘researching’ while the price of property in our city skyrockets. Or we can’t decide which fitness program will work for us so we sit on our ever-expanding arses while we think about it a little longer.

Blame the Industrial Revolution

Could it be that one of the reasons some of us find it difficult to choose a life partner nowadays is that there’s just too much choice. After all, the average person today simply knows a lot more people than they did a few centuries ago. And let’s not even open the door on the choice-fest that is Internet dating. Oops, just did.

If we lived in an isolated village of two hundred people where our choice of prospective partners (being the only two not actually related to us), was restricted to Olaf the Pig Herder and Big Bjorn the Woodcutter then we would probably find the whole ‘choosing a life-partner’ thing quite straightforward. And maybe, less stressful.

Unless, of course, Olaf and Big Bjorn were both hotties. Or worse: notties.

However, most of us now live in cities containing millions of people. So, (as Tim Freedman from the awesome Aussie band ‘The Whitlams’ suggests) even if our perfect partner is ‘one in a million’ that means there could be at least two or three others living in the same metropolitan area. What if one of them is better suited to us than the one-in-a-million we are already dating? What if the next one-in-a-million actually likes our crappy taste in music? Or our mother? Or that thing we do? Such a concept can be somewhat paralysing for your average available city-dweller in the twenty-first century. (By the way, the current population of the city of Melbourne – where the Big Guy lives – is four million. Just thought you should know …)

Coping with Choices

Unless we decide to become Amish (I’ve considered it), we need to learn to cope with all the choices that our modern world presents. Perhaps one of the ways that we can lessen our anxiety is to remind ourselves that very few of the choices we make are forever, undo-able or life-changing. A year or two spent doing the ‘wrong’ university course are not wasted because you will have learnt something. If you embark on a new career and find that it’s just not for you, then change back or try something else. If you try indoor rock-climbing and you don’t like it, then at least you can tick it off and look for another activity. We need to have the courage to just ‘give it a go’ without stressing about what other people might think of us if it doesn’t work out.

Because, when you think about it, possibly the only ‘forever’ choice we have to make in life is having children. Sadly, unlike buying a new vacuum cleaner, if you find that once you get them home they’re not quite what the marketing had led you to expect, they can be very difficult to return (even with a valid receipt). Apparently, they ‘just don’t do that’ at the maternity hospital. So unhelpful.

And, evidently, selling them on Ebay is socially unacceptable. Who knew?

Good Enough is Often Good Enough

With such a startling variety of products and choices available to us, it is very easy to feel pressured to make the ‘perfect’ decision. We don’t necessarily need (nor can most of us afford) the best in the world but, naturally, we want to choose the best option for us:  the best fitness plan for us, the best superannuation policy for us, the best mobile phone for us or the best breed of dog for us.

While it is often sensible to undertake a little bit of research or seek out a few recommendations, if we adopt the mindset that we always have to make the perfect decision, then we are inviting anxiety into our lives and setting ourselves up for problems. Because the only way we can be certain that we have chosen the best is if we have examined every single choice available – which can be either exhausting or impossible.

Perhaps we need to let go of our pursuit of ‘best’ and choose to be happy with ‘good enough’. Maybe not in relation to our life partners (that’s a whole other conversation right there), but at least in relation to our hairdryers. And our toilet paper.

Does It Really Matter?

Could it be that as we are now presented with more and more choices, it is increasingly important that we gain some clarity and perspective about which decisions are a good investment of our time and emotional energy and which are not? Sometimes we can become so distracted by the static of little choices and decisions that we can no longer see the big picture – a good proportion of the ‘stuff’ that we agonise over has very little impact on our overall happiness, life purpose or the achieving of our goals. Or maybe that’s just me.

 Perhaps, as he at him-dot-com says, it is all about asking ourselves the right questions.

 So …

Do you think that sometimes having more choices can actually be counter-productive to our happiness? Do you have any strategies to help with the decision-making process? As always, looking forward to hearing your thoughts and opinions.

CJ xox

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