In 2003, psychologist Barry Schwartz went to buy a pair of jeans.

The salesperson asked: slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, baggy, extra baggy? Button fly or zip? Stonewashed, acid washed, distressed?

His excitement sank.

He turned that feeling into one of the most watched TED Talks ever recorded, and a book called The Paradox of Choice. He believed that more choices should mean more freedom. More freedom should mean more happiness.

But have you heard of the Jam study?
1 tasting table in a grocery store.
Some days they offered 6 jams and other days they offered 24.
The 24-jam table attracted more visitors.
But when it came time to actually buy something, the 6-jam table produced ten times more purchases.

The researchers said when the options multiply past a certain point, the decision itself becomes the obstacle.

Schwartz identified two types of people in his research. Maximizers and satisficers.

Maximizers always seek the best possible option. They read every review, consider every alternative, and nit picks every detail of a purchase. It takes a long time to commit and once committed they continue a stern evaluation of their wares.

Satisficers set a bar and stop the moment they clear it.

I wish it were as simple as one is good and one is bad but it’s not. They both have edges.

Maximizers make objectively better choices than satisficers². They often end up with higher salaries, and better stuff.

But they are less happy.

When you've considered fifty options, the forty-nine you didn't pick stay vivid. Every small disappointment with your choice, and there will always be small disappointments, gets measured against the imagined perfection of the alternatives.

The gap between what you have and what you could have had can feel like your fault.

As Schwartz puts it: "The more options there are, the easier it is to regret anything at all that is disappointing about the option that you chose."

We live in a moment of almost unlimited optionality. And it's fine to regret getting the wrong Nikes. But it's leaked past products.

On dating apps you can swipe through a thousand options before breakfast. You can pick up and move to a new city, apply for a hundred jobs, eat 190 different versions of protein packed granola bars. And somewhere in all of that, a quiet and very convincing belief takes hold:

There is a perfect version of your life out there, and the only reason you haven't found it is that you haven't looked hard enough.

That's an exhausting thing to believe.

So I’m working on disabling decision remorse.
A decision is only a start, it’s what you make of it that matters.

Until next time,

Live your light.