The zipper on my man-purse broke. So I have to find a new one. I devoted not a little of this past weekend, to say nothing of the last couple of weeks, to that aim, and have yet to come up with anything. I know what I’m looking for, and I have seen a few bags that fit the bill, but nothing that’s just right. You see, I live in Los Angeles now, and as a result, no matter what bag I finally decide on, it is certain that there is a better one within an hour’s drive.

This has been a recurring theme in my life lately. When I moved from St. Louis, I sold or donated anything that couldn’t fit into my car, and had to buy all new furniture. It took me a week to find the right desk, three trips to IKEA to decide on a bookshelf, and four different stores to finally settle on just the right loveseat. I’m still not happy with my reading lamp, which is number four, I think. It’s enough to drive you nuts.

According to some theories, it’s at least enough to drive you to depression. Barry Schwartz at Swarthmore College published a book in 2004 called The Paradox of Choice. In it, he argues that our array of consumer choices are so abundant that we cannot enjoy our choices, knowing that we probably missed a more optimal solution. Moreover, because everything comes in such a wide variety of options, the blame lies not in the world for failing to meet our expectations, but but ourselves, for failing to do the legwork to get the best result. Our expectations of the world are inflated by the dizzying variety of options, and our expectations of ourselves to keep up with them are inflated as well. Eventually, the weight of all those opportunity costs can cause us to question our chouces before we even make them, throwing us into a nervous anxiety feedback loop, and making us dread every decision, and hate every outcome because of its suboptimality.

Naturally, Schwarz draws policy conclusions from his thesis (what kind of self-respecting academic can make a point about psychology without turning it into a prescription for society?).  The problem, he argues, is the combination of overabundance of choices and inflated expectations of outcome. That’s where his colleague and Obama regulation czar Cass Sunstein come in to nudge some of those bothersome decisions out of our way, and nudge some of that excess money in our bank accounts to other countries. That way, everyone is more equally miserable.

But I’m less interested in telling other people how to live than I am in figuring out how to do it myself. More to the point, trying to change the world is always difficult, often ineffective, and usually does more harm than good. Trying to reduce the number of choices is known as standardization, and it resulted in three TV networks, one phone service provider, and one model of car in one color. In other words, its moving into the past. Rather than blaming the number of choices for my sorry state, I’m going to concentrate on my reaction to them.

Specifically, the approach I’m going to take is one called “satisficing,” a strategy Schwartz himself discusses. The idea is to focus not on optimality, but rather on identifying specific criteria that need to be met, and going with the option that satisfies all of the relevant requirements. In other words, the option that suffices.

Thing is, what suffices for me will differ from what suffices for other people, for a variety of cultural, economic and yep, you guessed it, individual reasons. So let there be variety! And let me define my parameters before I go shopping next time.

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