Quotes About Choices

IT IS MAXIMIZERS WHO SUFFER MOST IN A CULTURE THAT PROVIDES too many choices.

So it seems that neither our predictions about how we will feel after an experience nor our memories of how we did feel during the experience are very accurate reflections of how we actually do feel while the experience is occurring. And yet it is memories of the past and expectations for the future that govern our choices.

So the researchers concluded that being forced to confront trade-offs in making decisions makes people unhappy and indecisive.

Even though we don't expect it to happen, such adaptation to pleasure is inevitable, and it may cause more disappointment in a world of many choices than in a world of few.

As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize

the modern university is a kind of intellectual shopping mall.

Now students are required to make choices about education that may affect them for the rest of their lives. And they are forced to make these choices at a point in their intellectual development when they may lack the resources to make them intelligently.

The more difficult information gathering is, the more likely it is that you will rely on the decisions of others.

choices are based upon expected utility. And once you have had experience with particular restaurants, CDs, or movies, future choices will be based upon what you remember about these past experiences, in other words, on their remembered utility.

Bottom line—the options we consider usually suffer from comparison with other options.

decisions as trivial as renting a video become important if we believe that these decisions are revealing something significant about ourselves.

I am not suggesting that we will always, or even frequently, be better off "going with our gut" when making choices. What I am suggesting is there are pitfalls to deciding after analyzing. My concern, given the research on trade-offs and opportunity costs, is that as the number of options goes up, the need to provide justifications for decisions also increases.

I want a pair of jeans—32–28," I said. "Do you want them slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, baggy, or extra baggy?" she replied. "Do you want them stonewashed, acid-washed, or distressed? Do you want them button-fly or zipper-fly? Do you want them faded or regular?" I was stunned. A moment or two later I sputtered out something like, "I just want regular jeans. You know, the kind that used to be the only kind.

If the experience of disappointment is relentless, if virtually every choice you make fails to live up to expectations and aspirations, and if you consistently take personal responsibility for the disappointments, then the trivial looms larger and larger, and the conclusion that you can't do anything right becomes devastating.

The trouble was that with all these options available to me now, I was no longer sure that "regular" jeans were what I wanted. Perhaps the easy fit or the relaxed fit would be more comfortable.

AS WE HAVE SEEN, REGRET WILL MAKE US FEEL WORSE AFTER DECISIONS—EVEN ones that work out—than we otherwise would, especially when we take opportunity costs into consideration.

So even before your eyes are more than half open—long before you've had your first cup of coffee—you've made a dozen choices or more. But they don't count, really, as choices. You could have done otherwise, but you never gave it a thought.

We can mitigate regret by Adopting the standards of a satisficer rather than a maximizer. Reducing the number of options we consider before making a decision. Practicing gratitude for what is good in a decision rather than focusing on our disappointments with what is bad.

CHOOSING WELL IS DIFFICULT, AND MOST DECISIONS HAVE SEVERAL different dimensions.

Most good decisions will involve these steps: 1. Figure out your goal or goals. 2. Evaluate the importance of each goal. 3. Array the options. 4. Evaluate how likely each of the options is to meet your goals. 5. Pick the winning option. 6. Later use the consequences of your choice to modify your goals, the importance you assign to them, and the way you evaluate future possibilities.

we have too many choices, too many decisions, too little time to do what is really important.

So by forcing us to look around at what others are doing before we make decisions, the world of bountiful options is encouraging a process that will often, if not always, leave us feeling worse about our decisions than we would if we hadn't engaged in the process to begin with. Here is yet another reason why increasing the available options will decrease our satisfaction with what we choose.

I wish I had looked longer, but I don't blame myself. You never know where the trapdoors are in your life, do you?

The multiple choices and possibilities of daily life are the music we dance to. They are like strings on a guitar. Strum and you create a pleasing sound. A harmonic.