
According to Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice. Why Less is More: How the Culture of Abundance Robs Us of Satisfaction, the multitude of options in our culture has led not to greater happiness (hooray! I can have ANYTHING I want!) but to greater stress, anxiety, busyness and overall unhappiness (#$@%!!! Who cares about GROUT?! I could be sipping margaritas in Mexico right now instead of worrying about this…or, as mi amigo John would say after watching hours of telenovelas, Que Lastima!). “The growth of options and opportunities for choice has three, related, unfortunate effects,” Schwartz writes. “It means that decisions require more effort. It makes mistakes more likely. It makes the psychological consequences of mistakes more severe.” It makes a home builder caught in the whirlpool of decision-making want to run away to Puerto Vallarta for the weekend.
As I read Schwartz’s book, I can identify with what economists call the “tyranny of small decisions”—the sense of being overwhelmed when our options expand one by one. I’ve really tried to avoid being tyrannized in this way: I try NOT to look at just one more catalogue; I’m not obsessed with finding the best, most cost-effective, most environmentally-friendly anything. Mostly, I’m satisfied with being able to select from a limited range of products for any given situation. I’m happy with the skylight in the bathroom, the gush of winter sun streaming through the veranda doors, the big front porch, the unexpected storage nooks above the laundry closet, bathroom door, and in the front guest
room.
Unfortunately, while this system works for me, I still suffer occasionally from others’ expectations. With as many options as there are for windows, doors, cabinets, tile, granite, flooring, drip guards, fascia, light switches, Trex, siding, drawer pulls, ad nauseum, I’m comfortable NOT caring about some of them. We’re so saturated with choice in this culture that we’ve started believing that every choice matters, simply because it exists. I don’t think they all matter. I’m going to have a roof over my head (see photo!), a terrific neighborhood, a beautiful view, and an array of rooms in which to read, sleep, eat, and enjoy what in some places (Mexico, for example) might be considered Una Casa Muy Grande.

Unfortunately, while this system works for me, I still suffer occasionally from others’ expectations. With as many options as there are for windows, doors, cabinets, tile, granite, flooring, drip guards, fascia, light switches, Trex, siding, drawer pulls, ad nauseum, I’m comfortable NOT caring about some of them. We’re so saturated with choice in this culture that we’ve started believing that every choice matters, simply because it exists. I don’t think they all matter. I’m going to have a roof over my head (see photo!), a terrific neighborhood, a beautiful view, and an array of rooms in which to read, sleep, eat, and enjoy what in some places (Mexico, for example) might be considered Una Casa Muy Grande.

The greeter at Costco looked at me strangely when I asked for help “loading up some toilets,” but once we established that I needed assistance purchasing and not using them, peace was restored. The decision to buy the johns at Costco was simplified by the fact that they only sell ONE model, and it’s the dual-flusher I’ve long dreamed about. I then spent an hour grocery shopping with a flat bed cart heavy with commodes, parmesan cheese, a 32-pack box of Orville Redenbacher Lite Popcorn, a box of Larabars, and an 8-pack of Healthy Choice Italian Soup (0 Weight Watchers Points!). Talk about coming full circle.
I went to Another Large Box Store to purchase the Juno soundtrack (super fun), and ended up leaving with a receipt for a French-door LG fridge,

Although the enormity and number of decisions I’m making during the home-building process has driven the meter on my cranky scale all the way to eleven a few times, I remain hopeful and thankful about the project and the process. Choice, as Barry Schwartz has pointed out, is not just an overwhelming depress-fest. It’s an opportunity, too—for learning, self-discipline, self-expression, and “to be actively and effectively engaged in the world, with profound psychological benefits,” as a Schwartz says. And most days, I take time to remember that primarily, this opportunity is a gift, even it sometimes seems to be wrapped in a thousand layers and tied with a hundred knots.
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