The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz (+ Book Club Discussion)

Brace yourself: this is a long, detailed analysis of pretty much everything I underlined and connected to.

Why I Picked It Up

By occupation, I am a reviewer. A curator. I have always been so in the book sense, and aimed for a career in aesthetics á la art direction for a travel marketing agency of some kind, but stumbled into writing and reviewing instead. When I was in college, I assumed journalism had to be newsroom-style so never pursued it, but lifestyle service journalism is actually my perfect fit.

It is a career choice that perpetually has me thinking about optimization, what we want versus need, and of course, feeding our culture of consumerism. I get hundreds of pitches daily in my inbox from PR professionals claiming I need a new something, or to go somewhere, etc,. and I think part of being a responsible reviewer means constantly interrogating our role in the ecosystem of consumption; all the writers I know, especially those writing gift guides (to pay the bills and also, because it's frankly fun and what we're good at), do scrutinize what they do and do it because we are not autopilot shoppers. Still, even exposure to the volume of new products, trends, etc,. constantly hitting me sparks more desire than I'd otherwise have—in a way that's made me seriously consider what's a healthy appreciation of variation vs. too much.

Thanks for reading Words Like Silver! Subscribe for free to support my work.

Subscribe Now

placeholder

I have never been a big shopper (although I do appreciate style and aesthetics), which is why it is endlessly funny to me that I landed in a career that has me doing it professionally for others. I will put something in a cart that I love, return to it frequently, stare at for months until it sells out because I don't want to hit buy, curse myself when it eventually does sell out, then finally give in and snag it after 1) saving up and 2) seeing a return that happens to be in my size or whatever. And it still feels icky.

When people ask, I say I love being a curator. It's built into my 13+ years of running WLS. I love picking the "best of." And this year, I've also done a lot of internal work in breaking down my maximizing and perfectionism to figure out a healthy balance of striving to be the "best of," while also being grateful and accepting of what is real versus ideal. So this book felt relevant to that search.

A few specific reasons paradox of choice has been on my mind lately:

• It is gift guide season and I write shopping content—my biggest time of year.
• This year, I finally waded back into dating (or at least, being open to romantic connection) after like four years of not prioritizing it over book (which I joke I've been dating for years), and that's the main complaint I've heard from friends on the apps: that we've built a dating culture of paralysis of choice, saturation of options, etc,. that makes everyone unhappy because there's always something slightly better on the horizon. I like to be prepared!
• I'm an ambitious do-everything girl with a lot of goals of what I want to do in life and the stubborn certainty that I can make absolutely anything happen for myself with enough privilege, support, and willpower—so what to choose?

When I Picked It Up—the Context It Builds!

Before this, I'd just finished Grit by Angela Duckworth and The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Irrationality by Amanda Montell, both of which were great (and linked in the sidebar.) Because of that context, some insights and studies referenced in the beginning of The Paradox of Choice were familiar, perhaps overly so. (Hannah, my twin, to me recently: "You've been referencing a study for literally everything." Sorry! I'm on a kick!) The introduction to personal responsibility and decision making is so clearly top of mind for me, both because of muscling through 2024 and preparing for the inspiration of a new year.

At about halfway through, the insights changed and became more specific, which is when the value of the book really made itself clear. I'd originally been going to suggest skipping or skimming in favor of those other reads, but now, it makes sense to read The Paradox of Choice in tandem. Topics include the hedonistic treadmill, what triggers decision avoidance (which dovetails nicely with my reading on attachment styles), how to distinguish between rules/parameters/standards (and when to deploy each), etc,. I even learned there's a difference between maximizers and perfectionists—a framework I will absolutely use that's shifted the way I see myself and this year.

On a sociological level, it makes absolute sense why we've seen satisfaction and well-being plummet as choice goes up (across all avenues) and consumerism increases. So many good nuggets of information that I have to book club in here.

Voice & Tone

The tone never veers too self-help-y (which is a personal ick I didn't love about Grit), but does have clear lists, suggestions, and ways of organizing the information that may really break through to some people.

There are a lot of gut-deep truths that feel almost simplified, and Schwartz does like to beat a dead horse re: examples, but I do respect how he tied together concepts and broke conclusions down into bite-sized action items without feeling condescending or, again, self-help-y. (I like the plausible deniability of a psych or neuro book rather than corny "self improvement" inspirational narratives.) I absolutely think that organization and cohesion is just as important as prose and pacing when it comes to making a "good" nonfiction writer. Many pages did feel like they could be paragraphs, however, so I felt myself much more tempted to skim, an urge I don't normally have.

The book was an afternoon read, meaning I picked it up after work when I was procrastinating laundry and deciding it was a rest day workout-wise. It took me maybe two hours to finish—maybe because so much of the scientific basis is so freshly digested for me—and I do value the different emphasis and connections formed by this one, so it didn't feel redundant with the rest of my list. I might choose to use another as a basis if book clubbing, but supplement with passages from this one.

Sometimes, Schwartz was also a little overconfident, I think, in regards to some aspects which could be considered personal preference or calculated risk. For example, he cited a study about cohabitation before marriage leading to higher divorce rates in one conversation about how committed we are to choices, but there are a few external factors that might make that more of a correlation vs. causation thing. For one, I know that study he's referring to was literally commissioned by the Mormon church, so I'd be skeptical.

Factors like changes in no-fault divorce, legislation allowing women to finally have separate bank accounts and credit cards, etc,. also play a role in our evaluation of whether or not we're still as "committed" to marriage as we were in previous generations. People are also living together earlier because of the increase in living costs; many who don't may subscribe to religious ideals that also tell them to "stick it out" instead of divorce, so may be self-selecting in personality type. I do think he's right though for the reason he discusses below—that it's proven (unconsciously) when we give ourselves a mental out or opportunity to go back, we're already looking for a foot out the door and less likely to commit to our given choice.

He also talks about saving great experiences for special occasions so that your hedonistic treadmill doesn't adapt them to just being okay, and although I believe in the role of contrast in amplifying our simple pleasures and gratitude, I am much more inclined to go with the philosophy I read in Grit and Flow and all those others explaining how nuance replaces novelty when you're constantly open to learning and curiosity. There is always a way to go deeper into something and appreciate it more, so you don't need to constantly restrict yourself from what you love for the sake of making it "better." There's a balance there, for sure, but burn the candle!

At first glance, the book itself is dated. Examples he uses include mailed catalogs for shopping, picking between cable providers, etc,. This man would maybe lose his mind if writing for the era of Netflix/streaming, Hinge/apps, and the modern commerce landscape. Similarly (funny), he uses the magazine Real Simple as an example of our desire to de-clutter both our physical and mental environments (and I love Real Simple) but I wrote 1-2 shopping stories for their "news & deals" team for a solid year, so it's curious to see how that's shifted to bite the need for affiliate income too.

So Let's Get Into It—Book Club Discussion

Basically, Schwartz starts by discussing the level of personal autonomy that we think would make us happiest versus the level that actually does.

When we have no choice, we feel that everything is unbearable. We need a certain amount of choice in order to be happy. But our mistake is in assuming that more choices—and more options—are automatically better.

In fact, the reverse is true. Basically, our brains are sensitive to loss aversion, even in opportunity cost. Each loss affects us twice (negatively) as much as a gain does (positively), so we automatically put ourselves at a disadvantage. The more options you have, the more you give up by not choosing them, which means that you've increased the cumulative burden of each decision—plus the time, effort, and energy you've expended in picking. The more options you have, the more you also desperately try to justify your decision, and the more likely you are to regret it because the satisfaction/pleasure gained by your final choice pales in comparison to the tally of all your losses. Plus, if there are multiple factors you're balancing, we tend to imagine an ideal "perfect" choice that has all of those wants—but doesn't exist in reality—which we also compare our "best" option to. More options root us less in reality.

There's more too. We're not grateful enough, social comparison influences our wanting, our dopamine signals "more," etc,. Plus, nowadays, we're less willing to stick to our commitments; we want decisions to be reversible, which means we're biasing ourselves to look for the negatives/reasons to pick against them, rather than allowing our brains to (evolutionarily) find all the good in our choice and make us happy. What if, what if, what if?

I was surprised by how much Schwartz emphasized that our culture of paradox of choice makes our relationships suffer most. We're training our brains to be unhappy with essentially any decision we make with multiple choices because of the array available to us, which bleeds into our social lives. He argues that the commitments and burdens of social ties are proven to make us happiest—but right now, we're wiring ourselves to view commitment as a negative because of the trade-offs we've now forcibly inflated in value. The philosophy behind it reminds me a lot of The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, a favorite of mine.

“Paradoxically, the majority of people want control over their lives but also to simplify them.”

There's a chapter on triaging goals based on what's most important and then letting go of the rest, which reminds me of How to Be a Stoic and Grit which both emphasize that the key is not to try to control everything but rather to master control over everything that gets you to your most aligned sense of being and purpose (and then let go of everything else.) I mistakenly did the former for a long time, but this year, I consciously worked on shifting myself to the latter and have been so much happier (like actually—a wild difference, even in the trenches.)

For example, I love being a travel writer and sifting through the best of a location. It's absolutely a calling of mine, and makes me feel so fulfilled. But in my personal travel, I do like to go in blind because otherwise I feel the pressure of not having chosen the "right" option. So my goal for my first long-term trip to Europe this September was don't optimize at the expense of experience, and I was really proud of myself for embodying that, even though the trip had other challenges.

Also, I thought this element of the discussion was absolutely fascinating! Part of the reason we have so many choices in modernity is that it shifts the burden onto the consumer/chooser. If you make a bad choice, well. You had other options. Any consequences are your fault. He traces this through healthcare, shopping, dating, etc,. It's made us all wayyyy more anxious on a short- and long-term level because we are so wracked with personal guilt over not knowing what's best for us. Because (and this is key), we are remarkably terrible at guessing how decisions will make us feel later on. Instead, we're setting ourselves up for regret because of the structure of multiple choices, which feed negative framing.

“We expect to know how each choice will make us feel before we make it.”

Basically, if you can technically improve anything, you are failing by not choosing the best possible option.

It's of course so freeing to believe in control and personal autonomy (and in fact, these have always formed the basis of my values—the belief that you alone are held accountable for the way you move through your life, and so you must be active about it and accept the benefits/consequences as your own), but The Paradox of Choice does such a beautiful job of illustrating the dangers and fallacies. No wonder we're all constantly worried about whether or not we're doing the right thing, unless you've suppressed it enough.

“It's much easier to blame yourself for disappointing results in a world that provides unlimited choice than in a world where options are limited...The more we allow ourselves to be masters of our fates, the more we expect ourselves to be. [But] the amount of pleasure and satisfaction we derive from an experience has as much to do with how the experience relates to expectations as it does with the quality of the experience itself.”

He also talks about identity as being more of an active choice rather than an inheritance—which may feel resonant to those interested in personality testing and labels (and the fluidity of identity), as well as those navigating any marginalized or chosen identities in the modern age.

He makes a case for ignorance being bliss in a way, and for giving yourself less options but then deciding to make the best of whatever you commit to.

Everything I've Read Lately Has Made Me Hate the Internet

Oh, Lord. This is deserving of a whole separate post. I'm always curious about digital minimalism (and write/read a ton about it), and generally feel healthy about my online presence and scrolling habits. I hate having to rely on social media visibility so much for work success, but absolutely adore the way this blog sharpens and clarifies my vision of the world, the opportunities it's led to, the connections I've made with (such kind) strangers who express appreciation for my work or similar curiosities to my own. I am so grateful for it.

But every book I've read recently—about relationships, desire, unconscious influences, decision-making, grit, you name it—has basically called out multiple evolutionary mechanisms of understanding that cease to work over digital communications. We know that we lose context by missing someone's voice, facial expression, nuances, etc,. But never-have-I-ever seen so many specific losses articulated. It's made me crave only face-to-face interaction (hard to have from the most remote populated land mass in the world, but I love my lil' island) and hate texting. I'm a wordy girl, so that's significant. This year, I definitely have prioritized seeing friends and family in-person instead of holing myself away in my book cave even when tired.

THE GIST OF IT:

• We are bad listeners over the Internet and text. Truly, truly so much worse than we expect.
• Data does very little for us. You can't change minds via logic. You get much more (indirect) emotional processing in a face-to-face interaction that allows you to understand others better.
• We experience spontaneous trait transference when others in person are either shit-talking or praising others. We view people speaking positively as more positive, and negatively as more negative. Online, this effect ceases to exist, which is why people can be hateful on the Internet without really experiencing consequences. And the mental warping of our optimism vs. pessimism has really real effects on our states overall!
• With the peak of algorithms, we each rely more on secondhand news than the vivid, personal stories that tend to crystallize our opinions—meaning that we're all falling victim to the mushy bandwagon effect. Studies show that even exposure to false headlines—which the current algorithms stoke for engagement—is enough to make us believe in and remember them more, even if we logically know they're false, which is why negative news travels more quickly than positive news (and why we've experienced so much "fake news" across the political spectrum.)

Maximizing vs. Satisficing vs. Perfectionism

This year, I decided I wanted to fix my perfectionism. I think I can and will achieve greatness (and hold myself to that standard) but I was also killing myself some in the process. So that was a goal of mine: detach myself from outcome more, be more in-the-moment, be kinder to myself without losing my standards and (possibly abnormal) drive and endurance.

First, the book establishes maximization vs. satisficing. Basically, maximizers need to know that they're getting the best of something, but the very process of sifting ends up making them unhappy because of the opportunity cost mechanisms I talked about above. Satisficers stop looking once they've found something that reaches their standards (which can still be very high!) so tend to be happier and less regretful.

I always thought that perfectionism and maximization were synonymous. I remember being paralyzed by picking between colleges in high school, overwhelmed by the "version of myself" I could see thriving in each one. I used to feel similarly about picking where to live, what job to take, etc,. But the book draws a clear difference.

• Maximizers have unrealistic satisfaction expectations that they do expect to meet—but never really will because of the self-fulfilling prophecy of the process.
• Perfectionists have unrealistic satisfaction expectations that they never expect to meet—which means they're happier in a growth cycle of constant striving.

I thought that being a perfectionist was my negative bit, but I actually loved how The Paradox of Choice drew a clear line between perfectionism and maximizer. It turns out that what I was actually trying to fix was being a maximizer. I'm actually cool with being a perfectionist, and think it makes me great. My therapist and I have discussed figuring out when it benefits me most and how to identify when it shifts. (Many traits of ours are U-shaped, meaning that they help us to a certain point but can be harmful when we go too far with them, and that framework has been transformative for me.)

SOME FACTORS AFFECTING OUR SATISFACTION WITH DECISIONS

• How many options there are!
• We tally up opportunity cost.
• Confronting literally any trade-off makes us automatically unhappy. Just the reminder that an alternative option exists is enough to reduce our satisfaction. So comparison is literally the thief of joy.
• We spend more effort on the decision.
• Which makes mistakes more likely.
• Consequences feel more severe.
• We feel increased pressure to justify them (which we generally do incorrectly. More on that below.)
• Others' decisions!
• Maximizers tend to be more vulnerable to social comparison; seeing someone else make a decision negatively affects how they feel about their own. Satisficers are generally happier with their decision regardless of social influence.)

notes from reading

Some of us are maximizers in some domains but not in others, so Schwartz suggests figuring out which domains you satisfice in and then applying your insights/similar mentality to the domains in which you find yourself maximizing too much.

Schwartz argues that we assume it's the maximizers who have absolute standards and the satisficers that cave. But the maximizers are always moving the goal posts and evaluating their final choice in regards to others, expectations, number of options, etc,. which are all wildly variable; the satisficers, in contrast, have the absolute standards because they find what meets their requirements and hold on.

Part of the Problem Is That We're Defensive About Our Choices

I witness this a lot specifically in regards to my own aesthetic sensitivities (and on some pretty shallow preferences), but part of the reason we are so concerned with our own choices is that we view pretty much every choice we make as a way of announcing to the world who we are and what we care about.

“Each choice you make is an expression of your autonomy.”

One of the aspects I loved most about The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Irrationality by Amanda Montell was that we're so insecure about being told that our decision-making is wrong that we will do pretty much anything to justify the decisions that we make. Because if you can't trust your gut, what can you do?

As the stakes of decisions rise, so do our justifications because we're more concerned with what they say about ourselves and our character.

One (NEW!) point I absolutely loved learning about in The Paradox of Choice actually totally threw me off my habit of writing everything down in a way similar to how The Memory Illusion by Dr. Julia Shaw made me quit journaling for several years. This was such a cool, accurate way of putting it:

When we're writing down why we make a decision and verbally justifying it, we're indirectly crystallizing those reasons as more salient. But in reality, we're often just reaching for the reasons we find easiest to put into words rather than the "true" reasons, which may be inarticulable. By engaging in that process, we're reducing the importance of the real reasons in our memory—which might actually make us regret them more. You can actually make yourself like something less by writing down why you do. (Y'all poor, unfortunate words of affirmation souls on the Love Languages matrix. Couldn't be me. I'm some rotating combination of acts of service/quality time/physical touch, but of course appreciate any form of notice and intentionality.)

We can make decisions based on analysis, but that actually has very little to do with whether or not those choices are correct later on.

Similarly, I've gotten so much better at telling myself the following, and it's made me less anxious overall.

“I made the best decision I could with the information I had available to me at the time.”

The Case for Stubborn Optimism

Of course, I know I'm a wildly stubborn, gritty person. I'm committed to what I commit to, and I don't give up. Part of it—exemplified in this book and others—is that I've always had a very clear vision of what I want from my life and what matters to me (even if I waver on lower-level goals or ideas of execution), so every decision I make is in service of a dominant philosophy that makes me feel endlessly fulfilled. More on that in a goals post, later.

But The Paradox of Choice talks a lot about how decision-making itself makes us unhappy, and how knowing that broader purpose can allow you to automate or put in place certain rules that reduce the burden of what "doesn't matter." Basically, we should all care a little less about the many, many options we have in all portions of our life so we can devote the brain space to what gives us life.

So if you believe in sheer personal autonomy and self-sufficiency in all domains of life, you might actually suffer more because you feel responsible (and often regretful) about anything that goes wrong. With too many options, you are responsible for what happens to you. (Similar rabbit hole: bootstrap theory, free markets, shifting the burden of sustainability to the consumer, etc,. etc,.)

“Those nations whose citizens value personal freedom and control the most tend to have the highest suicide rates...The problem is that on a national or 'ecological' level, these same values have a pervasive, toxic effect. There's a tendency of every culture to persist in valuing the qualities that made it distinctively great long after they have lost their hedonic yield.”

(I've thought about this concept a lot lately, and it works nicely with my musings on perfectionism. My traits serve me to a certain extent, and then I can be better about recognizing when I'm taking them too far.)

Choice automatically creates conflict between multiple options. And conflict does boost decision avoidance, even when trivial, which is why having too many possible branches can make us feel paralyzed. And as the book points out (and The Power of Regret. talks about too), we tend to regret inaction more than action, and a big hurdle in most decisions is getting over the inertia of not making any. So going for it and making the best of things — and then expressing gratitude for everything that goes right — nearly always makes you happier.

(I saw this on Instagram the other day and boy, it is perfect.)

The mere presence of alternative options or the idea of trade-offs makes us automatically unhappy with our final choice. Our defensiveness in our decisions hikes. We talk ourselves out of liking it.

When you're looking to accept something, you're looking for reasons to love it.

When you're looking to compare or optimize something, you're looking to find reasons to reject it.

“When a decision is final, we engage in a variety of psychological processes that enhance our feelings about the choice we made relative to the alternatives. If a decision is reversible, we don't engage these processes to the same degree.”

Studies referenced in The Paradox of Choice also disproved a common misconception about decision-making. Instead, this framework is so cool and inspiring to me:

When we're in positive moods, we actually think better and make better decisions. When we're in negative moods, we make worse decisions because of risk aversion.

“Optimists explain successes with chronic, global, and personal causes and failures with transient, specific, and universal ones. [Pessimists do the reverse.]”

Our reasoning of course goes along with our hope, and optimism allows you to be more resilient, actually, because you don't take consequences as personally. (That doesn't mean making excuses—just, recognition of your capacity for control.)

I think this goes along with a cultural tendency I see which is to associate the negative option as being the "truer" one and the positive option as being "delusional." We're biased towards the cynics, but the optimists are actually more rational! But of course, that means opening yourself up to the possibility of loss. And then of course, there's a dopamine tie-in, but that's for my The Molecule of More review.

Basically, the book does argue some points and personal goals I've been mulling over for 2025 (and just in general.)

• Take people at face value.
• Believe the best in everyone and show it.
• Try not to think too much.

In essence, let people be who they are and what's meant to happen will happen, but we're torturing ourselves with everything else. Those facts have given me more internal peace than any Stoic manifesto or pep talk has so far. I choose to be an optimist.

Promise to you: I will write a whole 'nother post about optimism and what the book says about it, but this is getting too long and I'm midway through a reread of Humankind anyway.

The Peak-End Fallacy

On a more personal note, part of my reading list lately has been informed by the conclusion of a series of dates. (Won't talk more about that because privacy, etc,.) Reading is always personal and subjective, so I do like to share the inspiration behind a particular deep dive if the trajectory can resonate with someone in a similar boat. But reading's also an indirect practice—so no matter which connections I draw between my reading list and life, I'm not really sharing any personal information that actually matters.

Anyway when I'm processing something, especially if I'm bummed about the way something went, I like to gather/intellectualize all my information, which helps me get some necessary distance. I don't know if it's actually good for me, but it does make me feel better about any outcome.

My reading threads aren't about him even if the first curiosity was (so I don't think it's fixating), but it's more so that reading book A to process led me to book B which made me reflect on book C, which reminded me of book D that's always been on my list, then ties together a lot of the new ideas I've read about this year in a way that helps me figure out what I think about relationships and choice as a whole.

Obviously, a connection can change or intensify your own personal reflections (serving as a mirror of sorts), which is why it can be so scary to trust getting to know someone. Exposing yourself to evaluation and critique—both theirs and yours—is vulnerable by definition.

Anyway, peak-end bias has always made me nervous romantically, because my romantic endings have never been all that great. I think sometimes about this idea from You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy about the ratio of positive vs. negative experiences that makes us want to see someone again. I have probably failed at that, if we judge mostly by endings.

Obviously if the ending's bad, the ratio shifts negative. A lot of people will avoid reconnecting to avoid the complication of caring; it takes a lot to override our instinct to wince away from conflict—even if the conflict is just the way any dust settled.

This situation wasn't the same parameter-wise, but it was the worst date I've ever been on (which wasn't his fault—I blame the venue for making it weird!) Regardless, it was such a shitty way to go out, and one that doesn't feel necessarily accurate. But that's probably all he'll remember, which feels unfair. That's life for you.

According to this rule, we tend to categorize our memories and judgments of experiences by:

1. How experiences felt at their peak. (These, at least, would be happy for me, and I am so grateful. It's of course very special to get to know and care about someone you see so much good in, regardless of how it unfolds.)
2. How experiences felt when they ended. (BAD. For me, at least.)

Because of this tendency, joys recede from our awareness unless you are consciously grateful for them. And why would someone be, for a connection they've decided they don't want? Time elapsed and familiarity (proximity bias) is one of the only ways to dilute that perception; basically, you have to choose make the ending not an ending to fix the bias if it crystallizes negatively. We all want to be seen and for someone to take a chance on allowing us to redefine ourselves over and over and over again, but desire just to even know the other person is the core driver of that ability, obviously.

“Nothing, in truth, can ever replace a lost companion. Old comrades cannot be manufactured. There is nothing that can equal the treasure of so many shared memories, so many bad times endured together, so many quarrels, reconciliations, heartfelt impulses. Friendships like that cannot be reconstructed. If you plant an oak, you will hope in vain to sit soon under its shade. For such is life. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry”

I don't love knowing this or wrapping my head around the bias because this is not a person I expect to run into or hear from. I'm secure enough in myself to feel balanced (although I still hate the current circumstances), but my understanding ultimately does nothing.

All I can do for someone, and have done, is articulate myself the best I can, express my support for them as a person, and hope for their success regardless of whether they ever try to see me again. But the bias/tendency just makes me a little miserable, because I know the brain has a way of justifying anything—even deciding you shouldn't care about someone, or telling yourself that you never really did. (Not just on other parties—I've done this in the past too. I am a perfectionist who is far from perfect.)

I know that I'll remember a lot of my favorite moments and consistencies, but what if they don't? I'd still at least like to have been a positive presence or impact. But, still—nothing to do about it. If I never interact with them again, there's my answer and so there's no point in worrying. (And that's the Stoicism reading talking, y'all.)

The book definitely helped exacerbate (but later soothe) some of my broader worries about modern connection—and how we reflect on it—surfaced by recent experiences. Paradox of choice, indeed.

Anyway, What Really Matters to You?

For one, the book establishes the pursuit of personal purpose (and a top-level goal of philosophy) as a guiding force for happiness in a way similar to how Grit did. They make the same argument (and Stoicism does too): the smaller choices don't matter unless they're serving your broader overview, so you shouldn't worry so much about them or get too bogged down in the details. You're automatically reducing your enjoyment just by engaging in that process. Does this really get you to what you want? What is it you really want? We're constantly exposed to all the little things we should want, which are frankly bullshit.

“The lesson here is that high expectations can be counterproductive. We probably can do more to affect the quality of our lives by controlling our expectations than we can by doing virtually anything else.”

Secondly, I loved that this book actually had a strange amount of emphasis on investing in others and social connections, which I'd expect more from any of the myriad of connectivity books I've been reading lately like Survival of the Friendliest or The Lonely Crowd. It's argued in Grit too—we tend to be most fulfilled by goals that both satisfy our sense of self and contribute to the well-being of others, rather than solely the former.

Sure, it's actually a little selfish to be selfless because it makes you feel good (are we being fraudulent?), but that's literally baked into us and our rewards systems. One of my favorite studies is called "Surprisingly Happy to Have Helped: Underestimating Prosociality Creates a Misplaced Barrier to Asking for Help" and I mentally reference it whenever I'm dreading asking a friend for support.

But I was shocked (and pleasantly surprised) by how passionately this book argued for the importance of social connections and ties, connecting it to the framework of how most happiness is actually found in the margins of commitments that sometimes do make us miserable—because those are what matter most to us, ultimately. (There's a correlation vs. causation question there too though. Are happy people in more social relationships, or are social relationships leading to happy? Schwartz concludes that it's a bit of both: once you're in the positive feedback loop, the good effects exponentially multiply.)

Social ties do decrease our personal autonomy. And our assumption would be that having more freedom would make us happier, but as the book shows—sometimes, more choice isn't actually what we want or what will satisfy us.

“There is an inherent tension between being your own person and determining your own 'self,' and meaningful involvement in social groups. Significant social involvement requires subordinating the self. So the more we focus on ourselves, the more our connections to others weaken.”

Past a certain point of helplessness, the feeling of responsibility to others and restraint satisfies us more. Our increase in the number of choices out there (and knowledge that we can just back out) increases the conflict between alternatives (ideal vs. reality, best vs. next best, outcome vs. tallied opportunity cost, expectation vs. execution) which increases our decision avoidance—so in other words, it's easier to just exit and find a new alternative rather than sticking it out, which is where we actually build lasting happiness. We also literally get ourselves to regret a decision (and therefore dislike it) before we even make it, just by imagining alternatives that don't exist. What if a better opportunity appears? Which is why Schwartz argues for commitment without giving yourself an exit opp.

“Regret and responsibility go hand in hand.”

“The bitter taste of regret detracts from the satisfaction we do get, whether or not the regret is justified. Anticipated regret is in many ways worse, because it will produce not just dissatisfaction but paralysis...Getting the best objective result may not be worth much if we feel disappointed in it anyway. If your goal is to get the best, then you will not be comfortable with the constraints imposed by reality.”

Basically, the book makes a case for finding what you care about and committing without too much concern about "optimization." And he provides strategies for that too. Here's where the action items can get self help-y, but they're so accurate that I don't even really care.

• Know that—because of the pursuit of novelty and the hedonistic treadmill—your enjoyment of something you choose gradually goes down, but expressing gratitude for what you have will genuinely boost your enjoyment of it in a corrective way.
• So, similarly—reduce your number of choices. (Schwartz didn't touch on this because of the publication date, but I'd say this is a compelling argument for staying offline? Exposure to constant better options can make you less happy with what you have.)
• Spend less time looking for the "perfect" thing. Stop when you find something that checks your boxes of "good enough." Easier said than done, but your standards can still be wildly high. Just—stop comparing once something meets your standard.
• Spend less energy choosing—because the more you agonize, the less satisfying the end result becomes regardless.
• So sure, it's nice to be able to choose the "better" option. But if the very process of looking for the best literally tanks your ability to enjoy it, it's not better in the first place; it's worse.
• Once you make a commitment, trust it. Make a rule that you won't look elsewhere. Ultimately, your brain puts in a lot of effort to make you happy with what you commit to, and if you know you're not "really" committing and giving yourself a secret out, it won't engage in those same gratitude-boosting practices.

Basically: invest in people. You might be surprised.

Specific Lines & Concepts I Enjoyed

• He establishes two types of liberties, positive vs. negative—"freedom from" something vs. "freedom to" do something.
• More people view shopping as a hassle, yet we do more of it.
• Adding one more option is not the answer to making the best choice. It's always easy to add "just one more" but it increases both 1) the effort expended in the decision itself, which affects our perception—usually negatively—of the outcome and 2) the tallied opportunity cost (perceived loss) of making a decision at all, because you're less happy with your final choice.
• One method of avoiding this is to only ever compare your top/final choice to the next best option, not all of the others. By limiting your opportunity cost to one competitor rather than say, the combined quality of ten others, you're more likely to appreciate your top choice more. It's an appreciation and realism issue, because we're often comparing to a hypothetical sum that doesn't exist.
• Sure, we've always had choices about identity and whatnot. But the difference is that we've shifted choices from implicit to explicit, and their explicit expression is what's throwing us all for a loop.
• We have a tendency to assign way more responsibility to ourselves for bad outcomes. For example, one study had researchers asking participants to imagine a hypothetical car accident sequence on a bad-weather day and asking what they would want to change about it if they could change one factor. Instead of saying they'd change the weather (or anything external), participants adjusted their behavior. Obviously, we know we blame ourselves for bad and good, but this book was a healthy reminder that it's not necessarily rational to either.

“Our heightened individualism means that, not only do we expect perfection in all things, but we expect to produce this perfection ourselves.”

• We remember stories and anecdotes — which reminds me of The Sea We Swim In.
• It also talks about how we form our models of wanting and tastemakers—which I recently read about in Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire.
• Group predictions and averages are usually significantly better and more accurate than individual forecasts because of unseen fallacies in our decision-making.
• We prefer small, sure gains to larger uncertain ones which is why many of us settle—because of our loss aversion. (Not to be like—I think I might be a weird exception to this? But in a lot of these chats, both in this book and Grit, I've realized I may be oddly brave because I'm a bit of the reverse on concepts like conformity and risk-taking.)
• There was a whole conversation about the hedonistic treadmill and about how pleasure turns to comfort. Pleasure is more thrilling to us, so we crave it. (Dopamine connection there too.) But it's why, when you buy/choose something and get used to it, you're often disappointed as you adapt. "The mistake is to assume that the way it feels at that moment is the way it will feel forever."
• Single decisions matter way less than we assume. We have a tendency to isolate significant effects to single decisions, but there's a whole matrix of choices influencing our feelings—which is why we are so very bad at anticipating outcomes.
• It had a fantastic discussion about counterfactuals (basically "if only" statements) and about how we can shift that regret to boost gratitude and make ourselves happier. Basically, optimism is better for you. If you tend to fixate on upward counterfactuals (imagined states that are better than what happened), you make yourself miserable. But if you focus on downward counterfactuals (imagined states that are worse), you make yourself grateful instead. It's not daydreaming that's the problem. Just...shift it.
• Ex: Like I said, I experience plenty of lows but overall consider myself a super grateful person. This spring, Hannah and I got hit with a stomach bug while on a press trip to the Dominican Republic, and I remember the PR coordinating the trip being so surprised by my thinking throughout, although we were both miserable. At least we got the boat day yesterday. At least tomorrow is the travel day. At least we have movies and access to Gatorade and beds to ourselves. I was like, seriously: this could have been so much worse, and we are very lucky in comparison, and that mitigated the shittiness of the experience. So in practice, can definitely attest!
• Side note: will chat about this in my The Molecule of More review, but The Paradox of Choice didn't really touch on neurotransmitters. As your dopamine increases, you actually become more sensitive to loss aversion, so there are a lot of connections to make between that system and the concepts expressed in this book.

Remind me: I definitely need to write about everything I've read recently about optimism and kindness in decision-making, because it's all very feel-good and related! And also the power of language in your brain in making you literally believe anything. Such cool insights about linguistics and memory lately.

I wasn't sure about this book at the beginning (and hey, look! I talked myself into liking it more by providing justifications and reasoning that were easier for me to articulate! A nice little reviewer-centric existential worry to tuck away now.) But I ultimately adored a lot of the connections and conversations it provoked for me. It's an easy enough read, and relevant on both personal and universal levels. I'd definitely recommend! It's quick, but with lots of food for thought no matter where you are in evaluating your choices.

Enjoy the sheer array of book options I've given you to read next—thus triggering the suspicion that you will not be truly satisfied by any of them. Godspeed.