Crossroads

Passion. Drive. Confidence.

These are all qualities that I do not possess, yet every business student seems to be overloaded with them- which pretty much makes me wonder wtf i am doing. Yesterday's talk scared me badly, in many ways. I also came to realise I have practically no mind of my own, and merely parrot the latest opinion that I have heard, which is pretty terrible.

Anyway, I came across this page of an acquaintance and saw this talk by Barry Schwartz, who talked about the paradox of choice. Most would believe that with improvements in industrial society, more choices for the consumer is good. However, the speaker believes that we are now inundated with too many choices, which end up making us unhappier.

If you are too lazy to watch the video, which is totally worth your time, heres the gist of it. With more choices, the opportunity cost increases. Even after having chosen a product/action, we think about the many other choices out there that we COULD have made instead, leading to more dissatisfaction. Compared to last time when we had fewer choices, we are actually unhappier; because last time when there werent many choices, we could blame our dissatisfaction on the lack of choices. However, now with countless options to choose from, we can only blame our dissatisfaction on ourselves.

TED talks are extremely interesting, with topics ranging from religion to technology. While you do not always have to agree with what the speaker is saying, it is always illuminating to see things from another perspective. Seeing both sides of an argument help you to think more objectively, and see through flimsy arguments like how working past your retirement leads to a better quality of life in old age.