I am interested in the effect of having more choices. A quick look at some of the results of a Google search "Do more choices make us happier?" showed that research has found the possibility of having too many choices. I searched my blog and found quite a few posts that deal with the question.
I thought I was untroubled by situations of too many choices. Not because I can decide among large numbers of items, but because I thought I was naturally unworried about the number of choices available. I do read a book or watch a show even when I know there are hundreds available. But I read in my own blog that I went to a large special sale of chocolate and got turned off by the entire idea of the brown stuff.
When I envision a spreadsheet listing many choices, say, books, I can see the titles listed on the left and attributes, possibly rated, in columns off to the right. Maybe attributes or characteristics of length, rating, price, availability, likelihood of being amusing, of being interesting, of being valuable to have read - say, those seven attributes listed by each and the sum of the ratings in a final column. How did I find the titles listed? Did I have titles or access to titles that I did not list?
It might be faster to simply look at any book and give it a try. Start reading and see if I like it. If so, finish. If not, drop it and try another. If I tire of trying books over a few days, I might stop and take a walk or a drive. If I find myself drawn to book searching and selection over the next few days, I will start up again. I can use a Replace function on this statement and insert "cars" or "pets" or something else to select.
