In one of my previous blog, I stated that a successful project needs focus. This means that at one point, you need to stop doing research and start using the gathered knowledge for more practical ends. Of course, finding the perfect moment for this is quite hard. Since there are still a lot of topics which are not clearly understood, providing ample new topics to research. These new topics will in turn lead to new topics and so on. However once you manage to drag yourself out of this rabbit hole of information, you notice that you obtained quite a few new insights. One of these insights I would like to share with you, it is about the problem of choice.

Imagine yourself in front of alcoholic's heaven, the Delirium Café in Brussels. This is something you have been looking forward to all your life. So you can't wait to get inside. Once inside you push your way through the crowd, towards the bar where you start to look at the long list (2004 different brands) of beers [1]. After reading for what seems like an eternity the bartender start to ask you what kind of beer you want. And then it starts. Your pulse seems to quicken, and you become awkwardly aware of all the people behind you pushing you to make a choice. How can you even start to order? You haven't even finished reading the list. But the pressure of having to choose is suddenly overwhelming. It is at this point that you can do two things:

1. Stop choosing, mumble some sort of excuse and try to flee out of there.
2. Hurriedly choose something from the list and hope for the best.

Neither one of the choices feels quite right and you already feel tired from all the decision making today. This simple example already illustrates a problem with decision making. When there are a lot of options people start to feel paralyzed and don't choose at all (option 1) [3], leaving these people with huge regrets.

Yet what happens if you are able to beat this paralysis and choose option 2?

The problem with option 2, is that it does not matter which choice you make, you always feel kind of let down in your decision. Of course this feels a little counter intuitive, the more choices the better a decision you can make right? Well you're wrong [2]. Because of the variety of choices your expectations also change. If we have enough options, we expect that there must be some sort of choice which fits our idea of perfection. When we realize that this is never going to happen we feel disappointed or angry even, although the choice was probably really good.

Another reason for this feeling of disappointment is that we are afraid to miss opportunities. I think this is best shown by another example. Picture yourself being a 20-year-old student who is longing for a weekend off (since you are tired of making decisions all week long). However, your friends are planning to go to some crazy party down the block for which you are invited. So on the one hand you would rather stay home, catch some sleep, feed the cat et cetera. On the other hand you are afraid of missing out on stories which will be repeated for weeks to come. What to do? This feeling of missing out is quite apparent in the example above, but we can imagine that this happens on a much greater scale if we have more options.

On the other side, what happens when the amount of choices are limited? Then we will just settle for something for one of the options. In this way you can blame the café, the world or even the universe for choosing badly. You did the best you could.. By contrast when there are a lot options, there is only one person that can be blamed for choosing badly, YOU!

In conclusion, there is a fundamental problem in having a choice. When we decide for one thing we consequently exclude all other scenarios. This leaves us with a feeling of disappointment. This feeling results from the idea of a perfect choice being somewhere out there, together with the experience of missing out. Therefore, we should try to limit our choices, which leaves us overall much happier. But don't let all this talk of choice distract you from the main message of this blog: When you actually go to the Delirium Café, come prepared and learn all the beers beforehand. Then you won't be put on the spot. Or.... Just order the same beer as the person next to you.

Many thanks to Alexander Bouma for his major contributions regarding this blog post

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium_Caf%C3%A9
[2] https://www.ted.com/speakers/barry_schwartz
[3] Ansoff, H. Igor (1965). Corporate Strategy: an Analytic Approach to Business Policy for Growth and Expansion. New York: McGraw-Hill.