The Paradox of Choice in the Internet Age

I’m frustrated. I’m frustrated because we are all told we can do anything we want to and that’s  where the conversation stops. What’s the anything? That answer is always left out of the conversation. There are an infinite amount of possibilities in the world so, you know, just pick one of those. Now a days its not that simple.

The Paradox of Choice is essentially the idea that the more choices you have, the better off you are, but not really. The more things I can choose from the better, the better chance I have to pick something that will make me happy but what happens when I now have 300 options instead of two? I pick the better of the two and be happy in one scenario or I pick the wrong thing out of three hundred and I think maybe there is something that would’ve been better suited to me. This is the fundamental problem facing all of us in the post - Internet society.

The idea of boundless choice applies to every facet of our lives: colleges, jobs, and even dating. Aziz Ansari touches on this idea in Modern Romance and how it affects our love life and basically boils it down to the thought that we are always seeking greener grass instead of working on our own lawn. Swiping all day on Tinder looking for a bio that matches us instead of going on those fifth and sixth dates that may build into a relationship. Why settle? Just look at how many potential matches I could be missing out on.

This is essentially the society we find ourselves in thanks to the Internet. We are simply overwhelmed with choice. How can we ever know that we are in the best situation when there’s so much out there we are aware of? We all have a friend who is traveling the world while we work a job that doesn’t necessarily spring us out of bed every day. I mean who can help but wonder if maybe they should be doing something else. Ultimately, no one has any clue because we are the first generation to live through this. An on-tap, instant source of information about people just like us doing weird and seemingly fun things.

I think at the end of the day the only real control we have on our own individual situation is to make the best of where you find yourself. Now of course this is not to say that everyone is fine where they are at but sometimes things aren’t as bad as we like to make it seem. I’m definitely guilty of that. The great thing about making the best of what we have is sometime you turn coal into diamonds and sometimes you realize you can’t work with shit and can move on

It’s also worth noting that it has never been easy to be a young twenty something thrust out into the working world. No one loves going from three hours of class a day to a 9-5. It’s okay to wonder what the hell you’re supposed to be doing because at the end of the day no one has it all together. I thought that someone would hand me an adult card and I’d understand how to do my taxes and pick healthcare plans. It never happened because everyone is figuring it out as they go.

So sometimes every opportunity isn’t perfect. That new date may have some quirks or that job may seem like a dead end but at the end of the day, it’s never perfect because it’s not meant to be. The lesson that I try and take to heart is that its better to have the experience and do the damn thing than to never know even if it doesn’t all make sense. I don’t believe in destiny but I believe that eventually we will right our own ship.

I say all this to say to anyone that feels like things aren’t perfect than maybe it’s worth an inner look rather than a change of venue. It’s worth putting on blinders in the interest of narrowing your focus from time to time. Just gotta stay positive and love the grind.