Barry Schwartz’ brilliant Paradox of Choice gave a very vivid description of how multiple choice affects us humans. Essentially, an overload of choice is just plain bad for us.


Most of us have within a “maximizer”, who is constantly searching for the best possible option of all those available.

Yes, you do make slightly better choices, on average, than if you had picked the first option that satisfied your “basic acceptability criteria”. But the cost is high: both the time you spend evaluating options; and the strain of finding the absolute best one. What’s more, studies show that you’ll end up less satisfied with the choice you made on the end; too often wondering if it really was the best option after all. not to mention that if a “new best one” comes on the market after you’ve made your choice, your entire decision is invalidated.

So… how to combat the maximizer? You could try to force-change your mindset; deciding that from now on, “good enough is enough.” but change is hard, especially for such a deep-seated mind-set. It’s often easier to limit choices. But the maximizer hates narrowing options.

Here, the “happiness studies” can be a great help: Tlime and time again, studies show that doing something altruistic gives you the highest payoff, .

So use that as a guide; as a best-choice-aid. Reassure your maximizer that by using altruism as best-choice-guide, it IS getting the best option every time in terms of payoff.

Having recently returned from a ten day silent meditation retreat, I was struck by the amount of noise we seem to crave. It’s already so noisy inside our own heads– thoughts, images, snatches of songs. And then we pour in yet more stimuli, with the background noise of television, or radio, and wonder why we can’t get to inner stillness…