Have you ever opened Netflix, spent 20 minutes scrolling, and then… just closed the app? Yeah. Same. At this point, I think I’ve spent more time choosing what to watch than actually watching anything.
It’s funny—we live in a world overflowing with choices. The gamut of cereal. Different kinds of milk (oat, almond, soy, cashew… I can’t keep up). An endless list of job adverts. In my case, a hundred book titles my friends swear you ‘must’ read, or a Google search would recommend you. You’d think all these options would make life better, right?
Well… maybe. But it ain’t always a yes.
There’s this idea in philosophy and psychology called “the paradox of choice”, which basically says: the more options we have, the more overwhelmed we feel. And honestly? That checks out. Just yesterday, I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to choose a book from google search. Yes, just a book. Sounds like not that big deal. But I ended up spending the amount of search time that I would have used to do other more interesting things. But that’s what it was.
Here’s what’s wild: having more options feels like freedom, but it can also feel like pressure. If you have only two choices and you pick the wrong one, you shrug it off. But with 200 choices? Suddenly you start thinking, “What if I missed the perfect one? What if I chose wrong? What if my soulmate book is sitting on page two of search results?”
And that’s where things get interesting. It’s not just about book choices. Choice shapes how we see ourselves. What we pick becomes part of our life, our identity —and that makes choosing feel bigger than it really is.
But let’s be honest: oftentimes, we don’t need the perfect option. We just need one that works. Still, something in us loves to agonize over tiny decisions as if we’re philosophers contemplating the meaning of life.
So I’m curious—what’s the last thing you overthought way too much?
A pair of shoes? A restaurant? A phone avatar? (No judgment. I’ve changed my avatar three times this week.)
Here’s what helps me when I’m stuck in Decision Overload Land:
• limit the number of options I’ll even look at
• give myself a time limit (surprisingly effective!)
• accept that “good enough” is… well, good enough and jump right into it with a leap of faith.
Because maybe the goal isn’t to find the perfect choice.
Maybe it’s just to enjoy the choice we make.
What do you think?
Are you a “decide in 5 seconds” person or a “compare every grain of rice” person? I’d genuinely love to know.
P.S. And honestly, in our age of endless information, this whole “paradox of choice” hits even harder. We’re constantly nudged into this myth of option meaning freedom —when half the time, it just means more stress. The good news? We do have agency. Sometimes the most powerful choice is simply refusing to get sucked into the endless scroll of possibilities.
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