The Tyranny of Choice
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast with your host and the future leader of The Republic Of Wales, Sveldfjer. Now this might be the only podcast in the world where you actually have to reduce the speed instead of increasing it. However, what I wanna get over to you is that the past is gone. The future doesn't exist. So if you wanna make the most of your life, you've gotta make the most of these moments every single day.
Speaker 1:And this podcast is gonna help you live a healthier, more fulfilled life, hopefully, giving you some wisdom to take away every single day. So I'm gonna shut up now so you can get on with listening to the next episode. Guys, this is a really important topic. I think, I think if you can master this and understand it, you will lead a much easier, healthier, happier life. And this is a big one.
Speaker 1:So get ready. If you're on your walks, get on your toes, twinkle toes, get ready for this big one. This is really mean, lots of you would have heard about this before, but we're gonna explain it in fitness and life and stuff. So the first thing is it's called the paradox of choice or the tyranny of choice, which is a bearer phrase, isn't it? Isn't that a bit more punchy?
Speaker 1:The paradox the tyranny of choice. Okay. So this was popularized in 02/2004. The book was called the paradox of choice by a psychologist. He argued in in in terms of marketing that eliminating choice significantly reduces anxiety for shoppers.
Speaker 1:So it's easier to make. So same as Netflix. You know, when you look on on you're on Netflix for for forty minutes looking for something to watch, that kind of too much choice kind of disabled disables us and paralyzes us from actually making any progress. And people have been looking into this for a while. Philosophers in the seventeenth century were talking about the tyranny of choice.
Speaker 1:And, you know, they were saying that humans strive for freedom of choice. And yet, you if you got too much choice, it's not a good thing. This comes into moderation again. But does this play a part in other parts of your life? Well, it's shown in relationships.
Speaker 1:It plays a huge part. You know, people are gonna be meeting online more and more now because of dating apps, and 50% of couples plus will in the West will have met online in the next few years. So that's gonna keep rising. But really, when we look back at humans, we we've only really evolved. And reading the book about the old way, hunter gatherers, you know, really small groups.
Speaker 1:You know, it might be a total of a 50 total people you'd know ever, ever, ever through your entire lifetime, and you might be even in smaller smaller subgroups. Right? That's how we've lived for 99.9% of our existence. So our brains have not really wired to deal with infinite pool of potential people to be friends with, partners to be with, choices with food, choices with materialistic stuff, choices of diet, choices of people to things to read, choice of everything. Just there wasn't a choice in a sense.
Speaker 1:There was here's what you've got. Right? Work with it. Okay? And they fucking did work with it.
Speaker 1:And they made the most of all they had in front of them. Okay? So that's the difference between humans for 99.9% of existence and what we are today. They worked with all they and made things better through effort and action and concentration and acceptance. But us right now, okay, we're in the opposite and there's studies now that show, okay that people who are single who use data naps are way more unhappy than people who are single and don't use data naps because they're not reminded every day of this insanely amount of choice, potential choice and it's this tyranny of choice, and it really is tyranny in the mind.
Speaker 1:Okay? And relationships are ones easiest to look into because people go through it in the modern world a lot. But too much of anything, too much of choice is gonna disable us. And this is true with nutrition as well. I see a lot of people like what should I eat?
Speaker 1:Because there's so many foods to eat it paralyzes them even making a choice of what to eat that day. Just eat what you like. You really simplify your process. Just eat what you like. See where it lands.
Speaker 1:What's your macro saying with the foods you like? Need some tweaks? Okay. Make a tweak. And then forget about, oh, I could have had this, could have had that.
Speaker 1:K? Stop letting this tyranny of choice ruin your life because it is ruining lives. It's ruining life when it comes to your food and what diet you should follow on Instagram, comparison, dating, friends, jobs, money, materialistic stuff. It's infinite amount of choices we can make. And I think the people that are happy making a choice and accepting it and then just getting on with things, they just steam ahead, steamroll ahead of people that are always like, oh.
Speaker 1:And this is where people hide behind perfectionism as well. Perfectionism doesn't give you any progress at all. Hide behind there so many routes you can go, and you don't go on any route at all. Okay. So how many of you know, think about it.
Speaker 1:Think of your conditioning. I want you all to really it's gonna be short voice note because I just want you all to start thinking about this today is how many choices do you make a day, and how many of those choices are you just there for minutes, sometimes hours thinking what to do? How many minutes and hours a day, week you you're wasting in this tyranny of choice land with everybody else? Like, you have to think about that. And this is another thing I mentioned a few weeks ago with Krishna Murti.
Speaker 1:He was talking about, like, when we've got energy, okay, and he talks about energy and he talks about effort. And effort is basically, oh, do I have to go? And you're back and forth by the door. Should I go in? Should I go out?
Speaker 1:I don't know. And you're wasting time, wasting energy. But that person just flies past. Maybe your sibling goes, I'm going. Straight out, smile on the face, energy flowing in one direction, boom, beaming.
Speaker 1:Okay. So where's your the energy flows a lot more when you just decide. When you can decide and crack on and move forward, energy is flowing. And when you've got good energy flowing, it's good things are happening. But if you're always back and forth, this choice, that choice, your energy is just it's just not going anywhere and it just it just reduces over time.
Speaker 1:There's nothing left. And you get fatigued over choice. It does fatigue you. How many times I've done this, did it the other night? Netflix.
Speaker 1:New things. Okay. What's on Netflix? Twenty minutes, thirty minutes ago, was like, do you know what? I can't be ass watching anything.
Speaker 1:And I put the the remote down. It just sapped my energy. I was like, God, that's mental. Same as sometimes on my Kindle, like when I'm reading something, I'm like, you know, I've read enough of this. What should I read now?
Speaker 1:I go through all the books. I'm like, ah, I just don't know. And I'll just shut it then. Think about that for a second. Same with food.
Speaker 1:I think food's a big one for us because we because we do have unlimited choice, but I think we make life a lot easier. We say, do you know what? Breakfasts are gonna be either this or that. My lunches are gonna be this or that. You know?
Speaker 1:You can be boring. And I say that word, I don't actually mean that it's boring. I think it's it's it's smart strategy to to eat similar things every day. But you can be boring with your day to day eating. But when you go out and have food and you eat out, go to restaurants, try different cuisines, don't be boring.
Speaker 1:Makes you more exciting, don't you? Know, eat the foods you like and we keep it basic, you know, that's fine. And then when you eat out, boom, try thing try new things. You don't have to be fancy and change things all the time with your meals. Just making life harder for yourself.
Speaker 1:You're making you are You're wasting energy with this tyranny of choice in foods every day. You're wasting time and energy thinking with the macros all the time with different foods. And you're wasting time just thinking, oh, could have had this, could have had that, when actually just get it done, follow through. Steve Jobs used to wear the same outfit every day, the black turtleneck. The reason he did it is because he didn't wanna waste any energy in the morning thinking what he should wear.
Speaker 1:So he just had loads of black turtlenecks, same jeans, same trainers. Just didn't wanna waste energy at all. Mark Zuckerberg does the same thing, same T shirt every day. Doesn't wanna think about, oh, should I wear this and that? There's no end the flow of energy is so direct in one path as soon as they wake up.
Speaker 1:That is I can't explain it. That's just I'm trying to explain it. That's just where where you feel your life is coming along. Do you what mean? Where you feel that your energy and your flow is all going forward.
Speaker 1:That's what we want. They call it the flow state, whatever you wanna call it. So I want you all after this voice note to go and write down or something where you find yourself in this paradox of choice every day and across your entire life. Write it down why you tend to have this paradox of choice. And I want you to start thinking how much energy you wasted on those, and can you reduce it by going for a simpler, you know, the you know, de facto option.
Speaker 1:So there's an interesting thing in this actually when people talk about McDonald's. So when you offer a food choice, oh, should we go to McDonald's? People always say yes to McDonald's because it's an easy we we we all like it. It's just an easy one. Everybody loves McDonald's.
Speaker 1:It's always the go to. Other things like KFC and stuff, you actually start comparing, and you're like, ah, KFC or Burger King? I don't know. And it's it's it's it's quite interesting how McDonald's has got that flow where everyone just goes yes, and they get on with things, and there's no messing about. But when it comes to other ones, we always worry and stuff.
Speaker 1:So can you do that for your own choices? If you're in the if in the morning and you're someone who wants to mix up your breakfast, you don't know what to do, can you have that just, you know, standard, I'm just gonna have prots protein and oats. That's it. There's no there's no mess about. There's no waste time.
Speaker 1:Let's just get it done. K? There's places to go. Would you all list them and let me know? Because this is a topic that does fascinate me because we talk about you know, we're talking about all this stuff, really health and fitness and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:But really when we talk about feeling alive, it is about the energy we we supply to the day. And I think if we're in a box going left, right, bashing against the wall, left, right, front, back, you know, we're not feeling good away. So let me know, I hope you found something useful from us. Make life easier for yourself. Get out of your own way.
Speaker 1:Okay? If you're like if you're gonna fail at something, at least failure is not in your direct control. If you can get out your own way and you still fail happy days. But if you get in your own way all the time, it's your fault. There's nobody to blame.
Speaker 1:I one blame anyway but just get out of your own way, that's the message today, enjoy your day, see some of you in book club, if not have a good day and I'll speak to you tomorrow. And that is it for today's episode so hopefully you took something away from it, if you didn't here's we need to take away. Stop wasting time on social media. Stop wasting time gossiping. You've only got a day to live.
Speaker 1:Today's the only day you ever have. So if there's anything to take away from this podcast, even if you can't understand the word I say, even if you didn't resonate with the wisdom I try to deliver, this is a reminder of you daily to live one day at a time. Give your moments meaning today and don't be fooled by thinking you've got unlimited amount of days. But if you can make the most of today, I'm telling you, you'll have a fulfilled life. So enjoy your day and hopefully I'll see you back tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Do daily to live one day at a time. Give your moments meaning today and don't be fooled by thinking you've got unlimited amount of days. But if you can make the most of today, I'm telling you, you'll have a fulfilled life. So enjoy your day and hopefully, I'll see you back tomorrow.
