Indecision as a recipe for disaster

Choice is a luxury that has developed with time in our society with the advance of consumerism: the key to ensuring a prosperous economy is providing enough variety of goods that everyone is served by one of the options (or more). And I consider it a luxury because back in the Middle Ages there were just no options: on the good days you had one thing to eat, on the bad ones you just had nothing. So considering that eat is not optional (if you intend to stay alive) the only sensible decision was to eat what was available whenever it was available. These days we are falling on the other side of the spectrum. There are so many options that a lot of them are not even considered and at most we end up picking among just a very small subset. This is the problem of choice overload that I have mentioned in another post.

One remarkable feature of choices is that, as essentially any other action, they are signals that reveal our thoughts and preferences. You can barely consider yourself Japanese if you do not like sushi, Indian if you do not like curry or Mexican if you do not eat guacamole. The choices we make help others construct an image of us, but that in turn forces us to consider the implication of our preferences before we express them. One paradigmatic example is inviting someone out to lunch. The other person probably has a clear idea of what kind of food they would like to eat but, not wanting to look picky or narrow-minded, they just casually concede "whatever you choose will be fine", but that is the situation starts to spiral down. If you, making use the apparent blank check that your friend has signed for you, inform them "I would love to have sushi", they are very likely to wrinkle their nose and state, with some guilt "I am not so much into raw fish". That is when you realize that the freedom was only apparent, so they you go for an easy one "there is this Italian restaurant around the corner where they have excellent pasta..." and the other person might reply "Sorry, I had spaghetti for dinner yesterday". Depending on the depth of your patience you might even give it a third time, but when that one flops too, you would naturally be inclined to ask again "So, what kind of food would you like to eat, then?". Sadly, it is not unheard of that the other person has the aplomb to reply something along the lines of "I do not know, whatever you want, just not those...". Of course, things would have been much easier if, instead of asking them, you could have peeked briefly into their mind and seen what they were actually looking forward to, so that you could make the right suggestion to start with. However, even that might not have worked, because quite often we do not know what we want, just the things that we do not want.

Photo: Aaron Muderick

The root of this indecision problem lies in our own limited ability to predict what will make us happy. In fact the difficulty comes from determining what would make us the happiest. When considering options it is fairly easy to remember if past selections were good or bad for us, but that is where the symmetry breaks: while bad experiences can be summarily discarded, the good ones have to be sorted in order to pick the best one. This is difficult in three ways: the first one is that we do not know if a repetition of the experience will be comparable (i.e. as good in every aspect) as the previous one; the second is that "good" is in fact multi-factorial, and it is hard to establish relative preferences between something interesting and something fun. The third aspect is that we do not know the things we do not know, and it is possible that something that we have not considered would make us even happier than any of the options considered. In view of these difficulties it is not surprising that we often let others choose for us and we just bear with it. But there are beautiful counterexamples.

This afternoon I was getting some groceries and, as I climbed back into the car I saw a couple parking just in front of me. The woman was driving and stayed in the car and the man got off and headed for the shop. As he was half-way to the door, she rolled back the window and asked him to get him "something fresh and fruity, like peachy or anything in that direction...". I almost cracked a laugh when the man rolled his eyes and turn around towards the shop with a face of resignation, already accepting the defeat in the impossible task that she had just assigned to him: to bring her something that she would like but that she cannot name. I could not stay to see the outcome of the quest, so I just drove back home smiling to myself in mild amusement and strong empathy. Almost everyday I hear similar requests from the kids: "Can you get us something nice to eat?". And I know that I just cannot leave the house with that request because it will always end up in disappointment. Instead, I inquire further "Sweet or hearty?", and that occasionally prompts a spot on answer such us "Actually, just buy potato chips with barbecue flavor", and they I can take off with grounded hopes of being successful in my provision run.

Next time you are faced with picking something even if you cannot make up your mind, being open about your own indecision is usually the best way. It would make clear to the other person that they do not get to choose, but that you need help in choosing. Also keep in mind that asking for "whatever" will be excruciating for the person that is trying to do you a favor and almost certainly disappointing for you, because indecision is a perfect recipe for disaster. Stay alert!