How Choices Are Not Always Helpful

Do you think having a lot of choices is good? Of course we do. Who wants to go to a restaurant and not have a lot of dishes to pick from? Yeah, well, this is not always the case. I was watching a video about this very subject today that argued this way.


Click here to see video: Choice: Less is More

Anyway you can check this out if you are interested. (The whole series of these videos is interesting. They are great speakers who come to speak to Google employees. I watch them in the morning while I do my yoga.)

So, okay, it makes sense to me after listening to the guy. But how does this apply to the real world? Then I thought about my living in Vietnam and how all of a sudden I started seeing all the things I didn't like about it. Before that, I loved everything. Well, most everything. Still, the change happened almost over night. And you know when that change occurred? Right after I got photos and emails from my daughter Gina living in Arizona and how wonderful and beautiful it is there. And I started thinking that I could move there.

Choice. I now had another place that I could live. Of course, because I was not living there I only fantasized about how wonderful it would be. And that is exactly when I began noticing all the things I didn't like about Vietnam.

The end result was a lot of anguish. There are a lot of people I love there. There are a lot of reasons for me to be there. But, now I also saw the bad. What to do? I spent a sleepless night and then days trying to decide what to do. In the end I decided to postpone coming back to Vietnam after the Christmas holidays and give Arizona a try. I believe that after living there a while I will see all the things I don't like about it also. Such is the nature of having choices.

I wonder how many marriages and relationships have ended because of this principle. Or jobs that we left. Or towns moved away from. (And countries.)

So what is the benefit of knowing this? Probably just being aware of how this works will be helpful in the future. I must know that when I have another choice it will always look better than what I have. It may be, but I can't know. I must not act so fast or assume what I don't know. I do know that I am headed for Arizona now, wondering what will happen, and glad that I do have options to go back to my original choice. But beware, often we don't have that option. Sometimes choices cannot be reversed.