99% of the time, I am grateful that I live in the 21st century – but a part of me wishes that I could go back to the 18th century. Not the unpleasant parts, mind you. But the idealized parts of it, coupled with the fact that you usually followed in the footsteps of your parents.
If your Dad was a farmer, you were probably going to be a farmer too. You didn’t have much of a choice, and that sounds a bit liberating.
Right now, I’m getting to a point where there is no “right answer”, and I’m having some trouble dealing with that.
Initially, my path was clear:
Public school ➡ High School ➡ University.
But after that point, there is no “default path”. Rather, the options feel like this:
Should I work within consulting? Become a developer? Work in product management? And at which company? I am in a very privileged position: I have a great education, a large network, and I probably will not have an issue finding employment.
But still: Trying to figure out which one of the choices I should make is difficult.
Mo’ choices mo’ problem
It’s a bit like the classic quote from The Notorious B.I.G. in the song “Mo Money Mo Problems”:
I don’t know what they want from me
The Notorious B.I.G.
It’s like the more money we come across
The more problems we see
And it seems like the same is true with choices.
More choices don’t actually make us happier; often, they bring along more negatives than positives:
The reason is simple: Whenever we have a lot of choices, it is easier to think that we have made the wrong choice. The one jar of jam we chose was not the best; one of the 50 others were.
Maximize or satisfice
In these cases, experts suggest that there are two different types of people: Maximizers and Satisficers.
Maximizers want to choose the best possible product. Before buying a speaker, they might spend 5 hours reading reviews online of which speaker is the best one for their budget. They want to avoid making the wrong choice.
Satisficers simply want to make a choice that is “good enough”. Instead of trying to choose between 10 speakers to find the best one, they set up a few criteria and pick the solution that fills those criteria. Afterwards, they don’t worry too much about what could have happened.
So when choosing our careers, we should probably adopt some points from the satisficers: Do not try to plan everything down to the small details. Choose some criteria and pick a job based on that.
