Barry Schwartz insists that the overwhelming number of choices that our modern society offers paralyzes people and results in them being less satisfied than if there were fewer options. This completely contradicts the western society dogma that an increase in choice leads to an increase of personal freedom and therefore personal welfare.
Many points Schwartz makes make perfect sense. Too many choices lead one to believe that there is a perfect option, so if one is less than thrilled with the decision he makes, there is regret and self-blame for not picking a better one, even when the choice made was still a good one. Too many options also leads to paralysis. When faced with too many choices, some people opt to not even make a decision rather than go through all the effort of picking an option. I would be shocked if anyone hadn't had personal experience that supported this theory: trying to pick a brand of bread at the store, buying a pair of sunglasses, walking into the UConn Study Abroad Fair and quickly walking out because there're just too many options, half of which overlap with other choices represented (yes, you might guess that one is a personal experience). In some cases, there are too many choices.
However, Schwartz brought up a few situations with which I did not agree. He said in this day and age, we are offered so much personal freedom for identity that every morning we wake up and have to decide who we want to be today. Although he may have been exaggerating a bit, this statement is a little extreme. Personal identity is not so much a decision as a state molded by one's personality and personal experience. If you're reinventing yourself every day, you're just not being honest with yourself. Schwartz also said that, as a professor, he assigns 20% less work to his students now than he did years ago because now their minds are occupied with such questions as when and who to marry, whether or not they should have kids before they start their career, etc. But as a college student, I disagree that these ponderings actually occupy a significant amount of time. If there are students sitting in their dorms right now wondering whether or not they should get married to their current significant other or wait a while, incapacitated from doing any other work at the same time, then I am quite ignorant. Sure, these are things people my age consider, but they're thoughts that occupy the free time sitting on the bus or at the dining hall table. I don't think anyone is spending so much actual time thinking about their future that they are unable to do as much work as any other student from years ago.
I would also like to hope that Schwartz is being a bit cynical when he says that our expectations are so high that we can no longer be pleasantly surprised. Just because there are more choices and opportunities now than there used to be does not mean we expect every single one of them to apply to us. Sure, if someone has the highest possible expectation for every situation they encounter, they are going to be disappointed a lot, but that applies to someone with the same mindset living 50 years ago. Having so many choices even makes it harder to predict what's going to happen in some ways, making a small surprise or bit of excitement here and there more likely.
I cannot help but disagree with Schwartz's key to happiness either. He said, perhaps a bit sarcastically, that low expectations are the secret to happiness. However, if one consistently has low expectations, including of themselves, they never have the ambition to do anything better than average, and then there is no satisfaction from obtaining a worthy goal. A life of low expectations is one of resignment and mediocrity, not happiness.
Perhaps the real key to happiness is a better method of organization for all of these options. Because it's true that with so many options, one of them is bound to be a very good fit for you specifically. It's simply a matter of finding it. For example, you will never hear me complain about having too many options for clothes, but I still much prefer online shopping to in-store shopping because of a lovely little tool the web offers: search filters. If you know what you're looking for, it's not that hard to find it. The more specific you are about what you want, the fewer options you have, and the easier it is to make a satisfying choice. Perhaps people need to implement such "search filters" of their own in real life. Walk into a situation already having a solid idea of what you want in order to quickly narrow down your options and make a more satisfying decision. If I went into that Study Abroad Fair with a better idea of where and when I wanted to go, I could have walked right up to the appropriate tables and gotten exactly the relevant information I needed. Learning from that experience, I now know to do some digging on the UConn study abroad website - which has many specific categories that make it easy to navigate - in order to find what I want to do before going to the next such fair. Then I'll be much more prepared to take advantage of that awesome resource. Yes, modern society offers a lot of choices, to the point that it can be overwhelming, but proper management of these options can lead to making some very satisfying decisions.
This blog is based on a TED Talk by Barry Schwartz: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
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