Weighing Up Charitable Causes

The Paradox of Choice
Yesterday I watched two short presentations on the Paradox of choice after asking Maitre to point me in the right direction as to what lesson (of the many I have) I should do next. The two people recommended were Barry Swartz and Ranata Salacl. I’ll begin by explaining what I was looking for, which might then further explain why I felt they didn’t help. I was looking for someone to explain to me how to choose, by which I mean which strategy I should use when confronted with an overwhelming amount of potential choices. I felt I did not get much out of the two presentations because all they told me was that having too many choices was in fact a problem, which I understood as I was already experiencing some of the negative effects of that.

I realize that I was expecting too much out of the presenters in asking them to help me with a strategy for a couple of reasons: a strategy will never yield the right choice as there is no right choice only a choice I made and other choices I did not make. Robert Frost’s poem “Two Roads” is not about making the right choice, but making a choice. The end of that poem could have very well been “I took the road less traveled by and nearly got eaten by a zombie. I beat the crap out of him and that has made all the difference.” One of the principle issues with choice is that we are preoccupied with making the right choice. We don’t chose because we don’t know which choice is the right choice whether we are talking about marriage or a fast food choice on a menu. No matter what the choice is related to and what choice we ultimately make, we will experience some level of regret if we choose to be past minded.

The second reason I feel I may have been expecting too much was because each choice must be approached differently. I can’t necessarily choose a phone like I choose a school or whether or not I get married. Some choices have more perceived weight than others. In each of these cases, it helps to be present minded, that is not to be focused on the potentialities of the future or the regrets of the past. But we are here now! Whether we have two roads or five hundred, we can only walk down one. I take comfort in the fact that if I make a choice that doesn’t quite suit me, there will always be the potential to make another choice, but never the same choice. I further take comfort in the fact that if I make a choice, it will in most cases not be the end of the world, I needn’t put such pressure on myself to make the right choice.

I think further that some of the feeling of overwhelm is based on our expectations of how things ought to happen or our
desires which are themselves based on expectations. One time I recall ordering pasta and chicken wings for delivery from a pizza shop that is not one of my favorite for pizzas. I figured I would be in the clear if I ordered the pasta because that is the only pizza shop that I know that delivers and has pasta. I was tremendously disappointed, but I expected to be also, because I hadn’t liked the pizza before. I sort of hated the fact that I spent twenty dollars plus tip on a mediocre meal which afterwards I considered would have been very useful for a few books or a ticket to another part of the country.

I have had tremendous regret recently related to my educational pursuits because I have grown up a bit since I graduated.
Part of the issue is that I feel I have been lied to. I have done everything I was asked to do related to getting an education and I expected that a job that provided me with financial security and a sense of purpose was going to be available for me to grab as I had the credentials. I often say, “If I could do it again, I wouldn’t buy into the lie that college is the only way to get a job. I would’ve gotten an education directly related to a growing field.” But there again is the problem of expectations, and really what is stopping me now from making the choices that I have to make? I can’t go back, so worrying about what might be different had I done this or that is a rather useless expense of energy. What can I do now? What options are there now that I can see?

The last point I want to make before I move to the conclusion is that of blame. Schwartz says that when we have the choice then we also have the blame. He gives an example of buying a pair of jeans. His first pair had begun to wear really thin, but at the time of purchase they were the only kind a person could buy. Now there is a potential for several hundred styles and fits because every detail is customizable. After one hour he walked away with the best fitting pair of jeans he had ever worn, but he lamented “they could’ve been better”.

I can’t really say I didn’t learn much from the two presentations I watched, but they didn’t meet my expectations, which as I said would have been impossible, but I did recall something that I think allowed me to write this relatively long essay. Becoming aware of the paradox of choice doesn’t necessarily mean one can change it or strategize to use it the most effectively. It simply means that it is there to be explored.