Visiting Dubai, a few years ago, I had a fascinating discussion with our cab driver. I asked him if he hoped his country’s economic growth would lead to democracy. He replied without hesitating, “No. We don’t want democracy here. The government takes care of us. They run the country; we don’t have to worry about it.” Here my wife pressed my hand in a way that said, why don’t you just leave it at that honey.
“Yes,” I said, “But if they change something and you don’t like it, or if they refuse to listen to you… you’ll have no power to do anything about it.” He smiled, but didn’t respond. I hadn’t convinced him.
We can all agree that freedom is a good thing. And more freedom = more happiness. But is this always the case? Recently I’ve been reading Psychologist Barry Schwartz’ The Paradox of Choice and it makes me wonder. The book offers a variety of examples of how more freedom of choice can actually decrease our happiness. Let’s look at a couple of the reasons:
-
Firstly, there is “adaptation” –after making a decision we can take for granted the benefits involved with our choice. We adapt. The great new promotion we accept at work becomes new norm and we stop appreciating it. We adapt to the rate of pay and are quickly back where we started from. People generally return to the level of happiness that is normal for them.
-
Also, many options also makes choosing difficult. A lot of us agonize over choices and then focus on what we gave up when we accepted, for example one career path instead of another. (I.e. I should have gone to medical school!).
Don’t worry
So Schwartz doesn’t suggest trying to maximize our happiness by continuously looking for better options and things to change. Instead he recommends “satisficing” –looking for a job that is ‘good enough’ and then, he says, you should do your best to appreciate it
But wait!
Is Schwartz presenting a false-choice? Basically, he is saying we can either give-up (striving for a better life) and be happy (with what we have), or else we can struggle for something better for ourselves and be miserable. I went searching for a different approach, or at least some middle ground.
The middle ground
Cartoonist Hugh McLeod (see gapingvoid.com) has an idea he calls “the Sex and Cash Theory;” it’s about how to make it as an artist.
The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended. (Source)
This very practical approach balances pragmatism (don’t quit your day job) with the need to try to make things better for ourselves (take a risk or do something you we love as a hobby). We don’t need to strive for perfection in all areas at once. This is advice our cab driver would have appreciated.
