The Age of Opportunities

In the mid-90s, we received a brochure in the mail from a sort of film club with an overview of the latest VHS releases. We had the option to order 4 of these films for a package price. I usually got to choose one of the 4. Once I picked The Rock. I remember how incredibly good I thought that movie was, and I watched it at least 10 times. The impression of The Rock as one of the greatest movies of all time still lingers. I felt like I had made a good choice — a choice that brought a sense of satisfaction both before, during, and after watching the film.

Fast forward 15 years.

My wife and I settled down on the couch one evening, having decided to watch a movie together. We don’t do this often, so we were determined to find a film that would be "worth" spending a couple of hours on. We fired up Netflix and began to scroll through the options. Some titles caught our interest. We read the descriptions, but neither of us was ready to commit to choosing a film. The feeling that there were better options out there lured us to keep browsing. After a quarter of an hour, we still hadn’t decided on a movie. In hindsight, I can barely remember which film we watched. The satisfaction of the choice was not the same as it was 15 years ago.

This got me thinking. Shouldn't more choices lead to better outcomes?

What about the options available regarding larger, important questions? Questions such as:

• What should I do with my time?
• Where should I live?
• Where should I go on vacation?
• Who should I spend time with?
• What should I learn?
• Who do I want to share my life with?
• What should I become?
• What should I work on?

Are more options better?

Let’s first take a brief historical look at how the number of opportunities in these areas has evolved over the past century.

Opportunities in the Past

Technological development and welfare have given most of us opportunities that were unthinkable just a few years ago.

Think about your grandparents. Most likely, they grew up in Norway in the mid-20th century. If they had the opportunity to travel much, it was slow. The number of leisure activities available to them was probably not vast. Skiing in the winter and soccer in the summer for the active ones.

Playing an instrument or reading books for the more intellectual. The selection of books for children and young people was probably not large. Anne-Cath. Vestly and Alf Prøysen were likely well-represented. For entertainment, there was radio, or perhaps a gramophone. Not like the radio today, where there are countless channels to choose from.

NRK. Radio was also the primary source of information. Perhaps supplemented by a rare newspaper for local news and an encyclopedia for general knowledge for some. When it came time for social interactions, it was not a big question who one would associate with. It was limited, of course, to those who were geographically close. The neighbor girl. The farmer boy. When the time came to think about dating, there probably weren’t many more choices. Maybe they met someone at high school. Maybe it was the son of a family friend. Education was often predetermined, if there was any choice at all. Domestic science school, agricultural school. High school. NTH with a few study directions for the truly privileged.

The same goes for professions. Women had few options. Men had a few more, but still not plenty.

Not that long ago, choices were implicit. For most, there were often not even real choices.

Opportunities Now

Fast forward to today.

We can travel almost anywhere in the world in a day or two.

Leisure opportunities are endless. E-sports clubs, parkour, and padel. Just within PC gaming, there’s a whole universe. If one wants to read a book, the choice is not easy. Hundreds of e-books.

The mobile phone has become the primary source of both information, entertainment, and social interaction. It is difficult to know which app contributes to what.

What about TV and film? Thousands of options available with a few taps on the screen.

Netflix, HBO, Sumo, Viaplay, Dplay, you name it!

Social media is the primary source of information. But what is fake news, clickbait, and actual information? It is hard to know.

Even worse; Social media gives us a false image of all the options that exist out there. Everyone posts "glamour shots" of their lives, making it easy to think that they have it better than us. That there are better options out there.

When it comes time to start looking for romantic partners, we have Tinder. Swipe left. Swipe right. Options pop up. There are an infinite number of fish in the sea.

Then it’s time to choose education. It must be easy. We’ve been told our whole lives that we can become whatever we want. We can educate ourselves in everything from 3D printing human organs to fermentation. The possibilities are overwhelming.

The same goes for professions. We have the opportunities. But it is difficult to choose among all the available options.

Compare the number of options a young person has today with the options available just a few (in human history) years ago. The difference is gigantic. And there are no signs that the opportunities will disappear anytime soon.

The Effect of All the Opportunities

It is easy to think that more options are better. It is fantastic to have all these choices available. But do they actually make us "happier"? Do they increase our quality of life?

As with most things, it is our own subjective perception that determines reality. It may well be that there were better film options objectively than The Rock on my childhood order list. Still, it was my subjective experience of that choice that made my satisfaction with that choice so great. Perhaps I would have experienced equal satisfaction by choosing another film.

So, it is not just the outcome of the choice that affects us. It is also what we think and feel about the outcome.

Research shows that more choices are better up to a certain point, but that after a certain point, diminishing returns occur. The gray curve illustrates the benefits of increased opportunities. The dotted curve illustrates the costs of increased opportunities. These costs are not as intuitive as the benefits. The costs associated with negative thoughts and feelings about the outcome. So what exactly lies behind these costs?

Grant and Schwartz describe three ways that an increased number of options can lead us to a worse outcome.

The first is the feeling of regret. After choosing a career path, it is easy to feel regret when it becomes challenging and exhausting. If the film you decided on has a few minutes with little action, it is easy to think you have made a worse choice. What we think about the choice becomes the feeling and memory we are left with. Social media can contribute to decreased satisfaction with our own choices. Imagine you just made a choice between two employers. Shortly after you start, the employer you didn’t choose posts a picture of a corporate retreat posing on a ski slope, looking thrilled. And you, who love to ski. Your new employer has no trips planned, and you have to grind at the office with a task that is more demanding than you envisioned. Regret.

The second mechanism against more options is FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). The fear of missing out. Most choices involve trade-offs, meaning one must forgo something to gain something else. With a high number of options, the chance increases that the ones you do not choose have some attractive characteristics that you must give up. If you are going to buy a cabin, it is difficult to find one that is both in the mountains and by the sea. If your options consist of all possible cabins, it is easy to get caught in indecision.

The last mechanism arises due to high expectations. As the gray curve illustrates, it is natural to expect a better outcome with increased choices. Think back to a fantastic restaurant experience you had. I bet it doesn’t stem from a Michelin star restaurant, but rather a place where you didn’t have high expectations to begin with. With high expectations comes the risk of disappointment, and a reduced likelihood of being positively surprised.

I believe these mechanisms are an important contributing cause behind many mental health challenges that young people face today.

So how can we tackle such large, complex choices with an overwhelming number of options in a way that ensures the outcome is good from both an objective and subjective perspective? A choice that one is satisfied with? That reduces the negative feelings associated with the choice.

I believe the main challenge is to be satisfied with the choice after it has been made. We can achieve this by letting go of the notion that one must make an optimal choice. It is simply not possible without knowing what lies ahead in the future.

We must lower expectations. Be satisfied with making the best choice based on the available information at the time of decision-making.

A structured decision-making process can help us with this.

A Personal Decision-Making Process

Many use some form of decision-making process at work. When the Oil Fund decides whether and where to invest billions, thorough assessments underpin the decision.

For you and me, it might be just as important to do thorough evaluations to make significant, personal choices. Here we stand alone. It is liberating, but at the same time, frightening.

Often, one can advantageously postpone the decision until a later time. You can use the time leading up to a decision point to gather information that supports the decision-making process. But sooner or later, one is forced to make a choice. The alternative is to end up in an eternal state of searching. End up not watching a movie at all. Like a job hopper. Like a burner who never commits to a relationship.

With a decision-making process, we can reinforce the confidence that we have made a good choice.

Depending on the context and decision, different decision-making processes may be suitable. Benjamin Franklin proposed creating a "Pros and Cons" list. For choices with multiple alternatives, the DECIDE model can be helpful. I personally used the process described in the article series "Create Your Dream Job" to choose which career path to take in 2016. That decision-making process created a sense of security that I had made the decision to the best of my ability.

Often, we can use others' experiences to gather better information about a choice. It is important to be aware of our individual differences and to be selective about the sources we want to draw from. Be cautious about using the majority as a source. Best-selling book lists, the most popular TV series. The most common professions. These can be useful sources of insight, but we also need to listen to ourselves and our own unique voice.

A decision-making process gives you the certainty needed that you have made the choice to the best of your ability. This makes it easier to commit. You get ownership of the decision.

Commitment

Without commitment, uncertainty will grow. Especially when faced with challenges as a result of the choice. A demanding job. A relationship that requires effort. A somewhat boring part of the movie.

Many times, one will attempt to change the choice.

Switch jobs. Look for a new partner. Switch to another film.

The Grass is Always Greener Syndrome 2.0.

But will the next choice be better? The grass is greener where we water it.

If you commit, you give the choice a real chance. Here, one must find the balance between having the possibility to reassess the choice at some point in the future (it may have been a terrible choice) and committing to investing sufficient time and effort into the choice for it to reveal its true colors.

The choice can be a diamond hidden beneath a layer of hardened clay. With effort and time, it will reveal itself.

In practice, I find it useful to set a future date for reevaluation of the choice. For a new job, it might be a year. For a new leisure activity, it could be 30 days. The insights you will gain at that point will be far more valuable than simply imagining the effects of the choice in advance.

Reinforcement

When one doubts their choices, it is reassuring to know that they have conducted a thorough decision-making process. But it is not always enough. We forget easily. Begin to doubt the choice. Forget the commitment. To reinforce the commitment, we can leverage the fact that we can create our own subjective reality. What you focus on can shape your perspective.