I was on the verge of starting this article when I found this lecture online by Barry Schwartz that summed up everything I wanted to say in a nutshell. But for the purpose of writing and recreating the lecturer's points, let me put it in--and with--my own words. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Limited freedom. Controlled liberty.
Contradictory? Or the basis for functional society and living?
Think about it. Too much freedom results in "chaos". Politics call it anarchy, psychology label it as eccentricity---a matter of deviation.But not anymore. For those of us who live in this postmodern world of instant's, social networking sites, and shapeshifting industrialism, freedom has widened its breadth in degrees once thought to be impossible. We enjoy this freedom, and familiar with its so-called benefits. You always have a choice. You always have choices...but the problem lies in that one 's'.
This is the paradox of choice.
These days if you want to have coffee, it's not a question of instant or brewed anymore. Where do you buy one? What brand suits your taste best? What blend? From what continent should the beans be? What kind of roast? Tall? Small? Grande? Venti? So on. And this is just coffee we're talking about. Think about the implications in bigger matters like your health, career, relationships.
"Life is a matter of choice, and the world we used to live in, there were some choices but not EVERYTHING is a matter of choice. Too much freedom paralyzes rather than liberates. Too many options make it hard to choose at all...
Even if we manage to make a choice, we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice than we would be if we had fewer options to choose from." For one, it's easy to imagine that you could have done better. "What if's" come into mind, you start to fantasize ho better off you'd be if you'd chosen to take that than this. Postmodernity even adds insult to this paradoxical injury. Development widens the breadth of choice. In the U.S., they have a special lab in Ben & Jerry's that's devoted to the creation of new ice cream flavors. Vanilla can be double vanilla, super vanilla, supercalifragilstic vanilla. It raises your expectations. Even if you get the good vanilla, you'd expect it's not the best vanilla because that best one is OUT THERE.
Over-expectation takes out the element of surprise and sets you up for disappointment. Kung gaano kataas ang akyat, ganoon din ang taas nang babagsakan. And when you ask why or what went wrong, the finger turns to you. You made the choice. Blame yourself. These are the fruits of overripe liberty: regret and self-blame. *Sigh*
'Some choice is better than none', it doesn't follow that 'more choices is better is better than some.' The fact is (and I love how Schwartz put this), as goldfish, we all need our metaphorical fishbowls. Not too limited to feel constricted but just enough not to lose our minds with a barrage of decision-making situations. Shattering the fishbowl for limitless possibilities leaves the fish in paralysis, and increases expectations...just before it runs out of air.
