Keep it Simple Baby

So I’ve been inspired by Barry Schwartz, the author of the book called “The Paradox of Choice”. It is a must read and a HUGE eye opener for any entrepreneur/ leader. I came across many of these issues when I took on the role of President of UCD SIFE and as I developed business plans last year. What is interesting about the idea of choice is how counterintuitive it actually is. So much action can take place if there are fewer things to choose from. The dissatisfaction of making the wrong decision can really hurt.

As a student of economics I think it is safe to say that the most important thing we track is peoples level of happiness within particular societies. Happiness is clearly so hard to define but I definitely know what unhappiness is and it seems to usually be caused through inaction and boredom. Barry Schwartz directly defends this idea when he presents the idea of choice. He clearly states that the abundance of choice can actually paralyze people and make them inactive. He also states that even when we do make a decision after being presented with an abundant amount of choices, we are less satisfied with our choice after we have made it knowing and imagining how much better the other choice could have been.

I do believe that confidence is a product of happiness, and therefore those who worry much are not happy individuals. Worrying does give the individual a sense of self-entitlement I suppose but the empowerment is more than outweighed by the feelings of anxiety that come along with it. Over-worrying becomes infectious to those around the worrier. People will put their guard up if they feel threatened. We all worry but do you want ot be identified as a worrier? Will this help you achieve happiness. I know in the past it has not helped myself. I believe this can actually harshly affect the relationships that person has with other people. A chronic worrier has difficulty building real/ strong relationships, and is more susceptible to unhappiness. I also believe that worrying leads to being reactive vs active. If one is being reactive often that means they did not anticipate an event. When something happens to them that they cannot control, they let it flip their world upside down.

I learned the concept of not trying to control the uncontrollable while playing baseball in college. I had to take a class every semester that was dedicated to the mental aspect of the game—though the principles pertain to life as well. When you’re in the game there are very few things you can control and probably the one and most important is your mental attitude and how you deal with failure and successes. Good ball players hit around .300, that means that the good ball player will fail 7 out of 10 times. How does that make any sense whatsoever! Well it’s not fun when you’re not hitting well, but if you let that effect other aspects of your game and then begin to make mental mistakes like: missing signs from the third base coach, not reading a ball in the dirt, not picking up the opposing catchers signs, not timing the pitcher, not getting a proper lead, not tagging on a fly ball, not picking up your third base coach when the situation permits it, not positioning yourself right on the field, not executing simple called plays, and not hitting your cutoff man, then you will not be an effective ball player. If your head is not properly in the game then all of the most fundamental parts of the game can fall to shit and effectively contribute to the loss of a game. So the ultimate lessons here are uncontrollable events occur everyday, but we can properly deal with these issues by accepting the uncontrollable along with finding ways to be satisfied with the decisions we make.
Many of us know that clinical depression and suicide rates in our country have increased by explosive amounts but often wonder why. Barry believes that it may be because of the industrialized world we live in which provides us with too much choice and possibly too much freedom. Though, he does also say that poor countries can benefit from more choice… The key is to somehow have a healthy equilibrium of choices but not infinite amounts. So be wealthy but limit yourself somehow. Because I’ve seen depression damage some that I have been really close with and they have effectively beaten it when many of their freedoms were stripped away from them. Their life was simple again.

Keep it simple stupid (KISS)… Who would have known how true this statement could be?

Chad