Whoever has the choice has the torment

Dear reader,

"whoever has the choice has the torment", is how a German saying goes and it's true.

This is shortly before a mayoral election. This time it's not combined with a council election. For those of you here or if you have a political election in your area some time but don't know, who to vote for: go vote and give your vote to Scorch the dragon and partner of ventriloquist Ronn Lucas!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIYInw2y6IQ

Only a while ago I read that it's not that good to have many possibilities. Of course it seems at first bad when you only have one option. What if you don't like that option? Without at least a second option, you're forced to take that one option and be happy with it, even if you don't like it.

On the other hand, I once needed something to clean the plughole. Since I don't have that problem often, I stood there and was just overwhelmed by the selection of what felt like 20 things to clean the plughole. Something similar happened the first time I had to get more washing powder. Everything is advertised as the perfect one for your cloths. And which of the 40 powders do I actually buy now?

The solution is fairly easy for me when it comes to movies I see on the TV program for the night and I want to watch several of them and have to decide which to watch. Is one of them unknown to me? Chances are good that I will watch that one. Have I watched all of them already? Chances are good that I'll watch none of them and the TV will be off that night. Have I seen none of them already? Chances are good that I'll watch none of them and the TV will be off that night as well. I like movies. They're one reason for my M&M posts, to introduce you to movies I like once in a while. But I know that when there are several movies I know already or several unknown movies, it's just easier for me to decide to watch none of them. It seems simple, even laughable with movie options. One can't seriously talk about "stress" there. The fact is though that we're more relaxed, if we have only one option and don't have to make a decision.


In his article Why too much choice is stressing us out Stewart Jeffries describes a study where samples of jam were set out for customers to taste. If they bought a jar, they were also given a dollar coupon. One time they had 6 different samples of jam, another time they had 24 samples. 30% of the customers with the smaller set bought a jar, but only 3% of the customers with the larger selection bought one.


Until next blog,
sarah