You can choose to read this…

Last week, a strange turn of events and an overboard introspection rendered me jobless. I was out again, exploring. People have always been kind enough and were ready to hire me. But all of this, landed me with choices. And there’s this thing with me and choices, I don’t like ’em much.

It’s not that I want to be reared like a cattle or something. I mean, I like my freedom of choosing mutton biryani over white sauce pasta. I just feel pressured when the Bai every morning asks me: Shaam ko kya banau?(What should I cook in the evening?)

I have often eluded Subway stores to eat at the tasteless McDonalds just to avoid the rigorous questionnaire encompassing bread, sauces, meat drilled down to the pickles.

It’s not just me. In his book, Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz has studied a lot many like me. A couple of days back, I had an interesting observation. I was out, shopping with my significantly better half. She had to buy one dress, just one. This piece of detail is vital in regards to the female shopping behavior. As a thumb rule, shopping for one dress and buying just one dress are entirely different things. Lest, I digress.

She was out in the maze of rows and columns, covered in aww-inspiring clothes. Mannequins marked the end of a brand and start of another. She gallantly marched through the rows and the columns picking out and putting back the dresses. The charade lasted for half an hour and she emerged with 3 dresses and an unsatisfied emotion.

Out of those thousands of dress, she managed to pick out 3. Her achievement was, in fact, commendable, but she wasn’t entirely happy about it. Anyways, it was my turn to make choices now. Remember, she had to buy just one. A phenomenon; almost impossible for the focus group in observation. I had to be the evil, heartless guy to let go of the other 2 aww-inspiring dresses. But what the hell, I became the man I was supposed to and made her choose ‘the one’.

The interesting part was, we both made a choice. She chose 3 out a thousand or more dresses, I chose 1 out of 3 and I was the happier one. Which brings me to the most interesting observation corroborated by the famous Barry Schwartz:

More the choices you have, the lesser satisfied you end up after making a choice.

To more expeditions and observations!