Have you ever thought about how odd it is that we Americans can walk into almost any grocery store in the country looking for potato chips and all of a sudden be confronted with 40 or more choices? Even some gas stations approach this amount of choice. Just plain old, original potato chips have so many brands to choose from—Utz, Lay’s, Kettle, Cape Cod, Ruffles, Pringles. It’s out of hand, in my opinion.
Just a few weeks ago as I was doing my grocery shopping, I saw a man standing in the chip aisle as I made my loop around the store. By the time I got to the other side of the chip aisle (after grabbing my refrigerated items and baby food pouches), he was still there. I know I shop pretty fast, but this seemed to be the height of choice overload.*
In the case of potato chips, too much choice kind of sucks. It’s part of the reason I like Trader Joe’s (in addition to their wine).
Choice is Still Mostly Good
But you know what aspect of your life doesn’t suck if you have too much choice?
I’ll give you a few hints, courtesy of Business Insider:
- Over a lifetime, the average person spends about 90,000 hours toiling away at it.
- Nearly 80 percent of Americans who do this are unsatisfied with it.
OK, it’s your job. Chances are good that, if you’re reading this and you’re an American, you don’t particularly like your job! Even in my work, which can occasionally be somewhat exciting, I only feel kind of “meh” about it.
However, I remember a time in my working career, years ago, when I felt kind of trapped by the work I was doing as Ace #1 Widget-Maker. I didn’t feel like I had a lot of passion, upward mobility, or options outside of my organization. “Man, am I going to be doing this for the rest of my career?” I didn’t have a lot of choices available to me to turn things around.
As a result, I started looking for and applying to other jobs. Some of them were outside my organization, some were in different locales, and some were even in other countries.
And here is the craziest shit. Once I got my first job offer from another employer, my job as Ace #1 Widget-Maker almost immediately changed for the better.
Hubba-Whaaa?
In reality, Ace #1 Widget-Maker was the exact same job it had always been. However, I had a big change in perspective all of a sudden. As I tried to compare the aspects of the new job as Prime #1 Widget-User to my job as Ace #1 Widget-Maker, I realized there were a lot of things to be happy about where I was.
I was reasonably satisfied with the amount I was being paid, I liked the people I made widgets with, and I had pretty flexible working hours. Also, do you know how much it costs to move when you own a house!?**
By comparison, the job offer to be Prime #1 Widget-User was in a totally different city, working for a new boss with new people, doing something I wasn’t entirely sure I would want to do once I had my son (unbeknownst to me at the time, about a 5-year runway).
It was such a powerful perspective shift to have this one option available to me all of a sudden. My viewpoint on my job changed from “this is where I have to be” to “this is where I want to be.”
So my advice to you if you’re feeling stuck at work: see what else is out there. The grass could be greener, or maybe not. Either way, you’ll probably come away from the experience better off. Only when you approach chip-level might it start to push you into choice overload territory.
*Read about the famous jam experiment here, or, if you have a little more time, read the original study, here.
**First-world problems… I know.
