More choices, more freedom?

It is a common thought that the more we have the better. Especially when compared to the early years of the industrial revolution and before, our day is reflected to be lucky in terms of our freedom to have so many options and we can reach whatever we need or want. However, it is remarkable to think through this; do more choices mean more freedom?

“Life is a matter of choice,” says the American psychologist, Barry Schwartz. In our daily lives, we have to make decisions in various areas of choice. From choices in health to choices for the future, we get to build our lives in the most satisfying way we possibly can. Yet while making these choices, what do you feel mostly? Happiness or anxiety? Satisfaction or stress? Stuck or free?

It is for sure a stressful process when we think of making decisions but remember; not everything we have to decide is a determinative figure in our lives yet even for the little things that we have to choose out of a certain number of things, we release stress and mostly overthink about it. In daily life, one goes through many decision processes; from what to do during the day to what to buy during grocery shopping. Thus, it comes to the conclusion that every little detail of a single day gets through making decisions out of choices.

For this writing, it is better getting into the details of the importance of choices because most of us are not aware of the impact of the process of choices more than what we choose indeed. Doing the groceries is one of the most vital points where you face the difficulty of choosing the most because you have thousands of different items and tens or hundreds of different choices for each item in the market. Thus, though it does not seem like a problem, it actually increases the level of our stress level during shopping.

Barry Schwartz makes simple math which he calls “The Official Dogma”, and his “official dogma” shows the link between the number of choices and our freedom. According to Schwartz, The Official Dogma works like this; countries try to increase the welfare of their citizens; thus, in his words, “if we are interested in maximizing the welfare of our citizens, then we have to maximize individual freedom. The more choice they have, the more freedom they have; and the more freedom they have, the more welfare they have”. This is because freedom is valuable for humans and citizens can reach welfare only when they have their freedom; thus, the freedom to choose for one’s own carries a bigger meaning than it appears. However, as opposed to this illusion, analytically more choices constrain our freedom indeed.

Schwartz continues “more choices create paralysis rather than liberalization.” The main reason for this is obviously with the growing world every day, people find it too difficult to choose. Only to wash your clothes, you might have 10 different brands with 10 other different specialties of each type of clothing. This is a lot. Or for mobile phones, there are thousands of new brands across the world with probably millions of features differing from one another. It is very nice to feel that you have endless choices but the illusion changes when you confront the fact that you have to pick one or a few at most among all. As we always want the best and the perfect for us, we will start looking for the best-featured phone for us but of course, it won’t be collected in one single mobile phone or detergent or anything else you’re looking for. Thus, you will have to give up on some of your desires and you will have to get along with the things you wouldn’t prefer on your final chosen item. This process works the same almost every time.

It is a tricky process when you have multiple choices of anything you look for, but it is probably obvious that some people suffer the number of choices more than others. That is because some people look for “the best” while others are okay with what is “good enough” for them. From this point, it is not wrong to say that those people who stress over multiple choices also deal with the anxiety of failure or disappointment. For example, even picking a notebook can mean a big deal for somebody because there are lots of other nice notebooks out there and when it’s considered in terms of their cover, paper quality, the number of pages, size, and so on, the idea of giving up on other choices creates a negative effect because it puts you in the loop of perfectionism. Henceforth, we get to the understanding that more choices paradoxically bring paralysis rather than freedom, in that, people find it very difficult to choose and decide on something.

It is not only about the materials but also the lifestyle things that we must choose. The decision to get married or to have children; to do a master’s or start working; dating this person or staying single, etc, while you’re choosing these things, you choose not to do the other things despite how attractive they can be to you. Eventually, such obsession over your choices ends up with not living in the moment but living in the possible situations that you could have chosen instead of this.

Another thing is even when you successfully accomplish the process of choosing, it is possible that you will be less satisfied with the thing you chose as this is how we are taught. Schwartz continues “adding options to people’s lives can’t help but increase the expectations people have about how good those options will be”. Thus, I believe the most suitable solution for this would be to lower expectations; whatever the matter that you face a dilemma, you can consider lowering your expectations about it. Having many options about how to shape your future or what to eat for dinner are so nice but it is endless and not realistic at all to have it all at once. So, it is probably best to settle down on something that makes you feel good enough because those endless options only feed your greed and once you start looking for the best all the time, you will get lost among those options because, for sure, you will always see what’s better than you have.

This is the world where we are exposed to an unnecessary number of choices, and it is unfortunately impossible to get over it at least for now. It is not the best but a piece of fair advice that we can at least reduce our stress level over the life of too many choices by being aware of who we are during the process of choosing. Life is complex enough to handle more complexity than we already have. Thus, lowering your expectations to realistic and possible levels and stopping self-blame will eventually lead to your self-respect and happiness, and it will help you decide easily and logically for the rest. 

Ref. The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz