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Too many choices, then nothing at all

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By Brian Orme, Contributing Writer 5:32 PM Thursday, July 2, 2009

When moving to a new house one of the first steps for any new homeowner — whether it’s your first home or just a new home with more space — is to purchase new furniture to fill the empty areas. After all, if you want to make friends with the new neighbors you want them to have a place to sit — preferably not on unpacked boxes.

So, my wife and our three boys decided to embark on a journey to a really large furniture store in hopes of finding the perfect chairs to place in our new family room.

As we strolled through the staged decor each room was filled with possibilities. We were in awe. However, our initial euphoria was quickly snuffed out by the magnitude of choices. It all became overwhelming. We liked everything and we liked nothing. We saw so much but we couldn’t decide what would fit our needs.

We were paralyzed by the multitude of options. We experienced what Barry Schwartz in his book “The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less” calls “choice overload.” “As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates,” he says.

It’s freeing to have choices, it’s a good thing, but with too many choices our stress levels skyrocket. After three hours we finally picked out some chairs we both liked. They were the perfect chairs. We headed to the warehouse, exhausted, making our way through the maze of textiles, rugs and bric-a-bracs. When we finally made it to the aisle where our new chairs where supposed to be, all we found was an empty bin. The sales attendant said, with a smile, “Yeah, we’re all out of those.”

At this point I lost my will to live. As I watched my boys glide across the shiny cement in the empty skid, I decided that I didn’t care about furniture any more. Boxes make great chairs.

We picked out a plant and a few other items and headed to the self-checkout sans chairs. I proceeded to scan the large plant, tilting it sideways so all the dirt fell out onto the scanner. My brain was fried. I apologized to one of the workers and she just shrugged and said, “It’s OK.” I think she felt pity for me.

My advice for new homeowners trying to furnish their newly acquired space: Avoid mega-stores unless you know exactly what you want. Or you can do what we eventually did — order new chairs online.

Brian Orme is an associate pastor at Community Grace Brethren Church in West Milton and a freelance religion writer. Send e-mail to mjorme@gmail.com or read more at www.brianorme.com.

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