Everyday decisions have become increasingly complex due to the 
overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. 
A trip to a typical supermarket reveals enormous choices such 
as 85 different crackers, 285 types of cookies, 230 varieties 
of canned soup, 80 different pain relievers, and 360 kinds of 
shampoo. Does this improve the quality of our lives?

American culture was founded on freedom of choice. A free 
market economy means that more options should result in better 
satisfaction for customers and improved products and services. 
But if the number and variety of choices means more time and 
effort involved in making even the most basic decisions on how 
to live and work, then we are creating more problems than we 
are solving.


Too Much Freedom Brings Less Freedom

In the book The Paradox of Choice (2004), Barry Schwartz says 
it well:

   Freedom of choice is essential to self-respect, public 
   participation, mobility, and nourishment, but not all 
   choice enhances freedom. Increased choice among goods 
   and services may contribute little or nothing to the 
   kind of freedom that counts. Indeed, it may impair 
   freedom by taking time and energy we'd be better off 
   devoting to other matters.


Choice Overload

The problem of escalating choices and decision dilemmas is not 
American. It is flourishing internationally. While freedom of 
choice is a good thing, we are discovering that it has a limit. 
There is a point at which it becomes a burden.

Excessive choice brings choice overload. It can make you 
question your decisions before your make them. It requires you 
to do consumer research and survey other consumers. Even after 
making a realistic investigation of different options, having 
too many choices can set you up to have expectations too high 
for satisfaction. It can make you blame yourself for failures 
and causes buyer's remorse.


The Downside of Choice

When people have no choice, life is unbearable. As the number of 
choices increases, as it has in our consumer culture and in free 
market societies, there is a positive and powerful increase in 
autonomy, control, and liberation. But as the number of choices 
keeps growing, negative aspects begin to appear. There is an 
increase in stress, decision-making dilemmas, anxiety, fears, 
disappointments, and even clinical depression.

In a study of 20 developed Western nations and Japan, those 
nations whose citizens value personal freedom and control the 
most tend to have the highest suicide rates. Especially with 
young people whose suicide rates have tripled in countries such 
as the U.S. and France, there are too many lifestyle choices 
and too many burdensome decisions to make, leading to overwhelm. 
When bad choices are made, the consequences are devastating.


The Way Out

According to Schwartz, we make the most of our freedoms by 
learning to make good choices about the things that matter 
while unburdening ourselves from too much concern about the 
things that don't.  

Here are a few of his suggestions:

1. We would be better off if we embrace certain voluntary 
   constraints on our freedom of choice instead of rebelling 
   against all constraints.

2. We might be better off seeking what is "good enough" instead 
   of seeking out the best.

3. We will be better off if we lower our expectations about the 
   results of decisions.

4. We would be better off if we paid less attention to what 
   others were doing or what they were acquiring.


Awareness of the problem requires that we change our previous 
assumptions that more is better, that more choice leads to 
better decisions, and that more freedom liberates us. This is 
the paradox we face.

There are some important steps to take back control and freedom 
that is being sapped by an overabundance of choices. Talking 
decisions over with a trusted peer or professional coach can 
help reduce anxiety. Learning to adopt an attitude of "good 
enough" may require a major shift in beliefs, and this is 
difficult to do alone.