Recently I came across a rather fascinating account of how Barry Schwartz in his book “The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less” posits that too much choice is not necessarily a luxury to benefit from. On the contrary, the availability of choice, says Schwartz, is making the outcome of our various decisions less fulfilling- at least for a category of people he chooses to call “Maximizers”.
Maximizers, by constitution, are people who when confronted with a range of alternatives seek to choose the one which results in the most favourable concatenation of events. Trouble is, often in this highly convoluted and multi faceted consumer market, no amount of analytical dissection can reveal with certainty the ideal choice. Then, of course, there is the subjective question of what “ideal” is. That’s not the point, however.
The point is that “Maximizers” are perpetually the victims of what economists call “Opportunity Cost”- either real or notional. The opportunity cost is brutal and in-your-face when it can be quantified, slimy and scheming when it is merely a creation of the paranoid consumer’s/decision maker’s mind. What this essentially means is that Maximizers will more often than not be left with a lingering taste of discontent after a decision-making scenario even if they have chosen correctly. They have the compulsive need to know what they have lost out on and as a result severely underestimate what they have acquired. All of this translates into the lack of the human emotion we call happiness.
On the other end of the spectrum, predictably, are those who focus their energies merely on choosing adequately and are therefore, rationally or irrationally, happier and in general sanguine , whatever be the turn of events. People belonging to this clan are likely to, having made a choice, convince themselves that, having chosen the best they could with the given information, it is futile to pursue the matter any further. This ability to distance oneself from the outcome of a decision contributes in great measure to their happiness and sunny optimism ,although, ask the Maximizers, and they’ll contend that they are not willing to live with their mistakes and would readily sacrifice this so called happiness if they can proactively make a positive contribution to their circumstances. So, depending on how we deal with choice, we are effectively divided into two distinct and often warring factions.
What, however, is of greater import and interest, is how pronounced this demarcation has become with the advent of technology and the subsequent sophistication of business and markets. The vast variety of alternatives before us today in combination with increasingly intricate and often obfuscating marketing ploys has ensured that “choice” is gradually becoming rather uncomfortable to deal with. What then would happen if choice were to be snatched away from us?
Mathematically speaking, if we were to assume that there is, in fact, only one ideal choice among a given set of choices, then as the range of available choices is narrowed, the probability of our choosing the ideal solution increases. Note, nevertheless, that the “ideal” choice is a variable entity which changes as the set of available choices changes. Which means, therefore, that making the best possible choice has no correlation whatsoever with the greatest positive contribution to the state of affairs because, quite frankly, a huge chunk of alternatives would, at any given instant, lie in the realm of the unknown. As a consequence of the rapid innovation over the last few decades our set of alternatives has broadened and in any given situation we now have a clearer, if not clear, view of what the greatest positive contribution to circumstances could be. But paradoxically, it is in the very nature of innovation and the scientific spirit never to recognize an alternative as insuperable and so, really, the concept of “the greatest positive contribution” does not actually exist in the same coordinate plane as time. Which is to say that at any given instant,we cannot possibly achieve the best outcome conceivable ,through any of the given alternatives that we may decide to choose.
That does not imply, however, that the Maximizers are engaged in a futile chase of relentless self-corrective iterations. It is their effort that has empowered us to make increasingly positive contributions which have, in no mean way, enriched our lives.The irony, unfortunately, is that this social well-being comes at the expense of those who deserve to enjoy it the most.
Indeed, sometimes the only way to brave the desert is to chase a mirage.
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