A few weeks ago, my wife and I decided to spend the evening watching a movie on Netflix. I made a nice pot of English tea and pulled out some biscuits from cupboard. We turned on the TV, loaded Netflix, and then browsed for things to watch.
We’d watched quite a few of the recommended movies, and others just didn’t seem perfect. We scrolled through the menus and options, looking for the right movie for our moods… and we couldn’t find what we wanted. After about 20 minutes, we gave up and decided to read instead.
I’m sure many of you have had a similar experience in some part of your life.
Maybe you’ve sat in a restaurant, staring at a huge menu with hundreds of different dishes, feeling more stressed and confused than excited. In fact, even something as simple as buying cereal in the supermarket can feel overwhelming when there are dozens of options in front of you.
We’re often told that more choice means more freedom, and more freedom means more happiness. But in real life, that doesn’t always seem to be true. In fact, sometimes the more options we have, the worse we feel.
So why does having more choice sometimes make us feel stressed, anxious, or dissatisfied instead of happy?
Today, on Thinking in English, I want to explore this idea… better known as the Paradox of Choice.
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