Have you heard of “choice addiction?” It is the paradox caused by an abundance of choice. Rather than leading to happiness, more choices seem to lead to never ending angst over which choice is “best” instead.
In relationships and especially marriage, choice addiction can lead to a dangerously dissatisfied non-committal attitude long after a commitment was supposedly made. Other options are considered after the door is supposed to be closed.
I have watched women endlessly go around and around in their own mind, questioning the choice she’s made in a mate, wondering if he was the right choice, wondering if there is a better choice? Meanwhile such internal strife ironically is what destroys any hope of living in and enjoying the moment.
Serial monogamy, casual relationships, and no-fault divorce just add to the choices. When social norms looked down upon such practices, women were more likely to choose thoughtfully and then embrace the choice she’d made, making the best of her situation. Today women are encouraged almost to walk away over the slightest dissatisfaction, to seek a “better” choice.
Choice addiction is an illusion. More choice, unending choice, and choice churn don’t lead to happiness. There is no magical, mystical “perfect” choice. In fact the best choice of all seems to be to accept and embrace a choice once made. To ignore and dismiss any further choices.
So if you find yourself slipping into the choice addiction mindset, remember — more choice isn’t necessarily better. And that every choice, even the best choices, include ups and downs, pros and cons, and pluses and minuses.
Studies show that it’s actually easier to find happiness and satisfaction when choice is limited versus when choice is abundant. In the current anything goes world, it may be those who choose not to consider their other choices who find the greatest contentment and joy in life.
Let those who have ears hear.
Notes From a Red Pill Girl 
Interesting perspective. Women have more choices now than they used to, however women are the ones who have a tendency to have a hard time making decisions, period. I have thought that maybe this is because they didn’t use to have to have good decision making skills, since decisions were made for them.
@Ashley that’s an interesting thought, too. I think in general there were less choices in times past. Like for example in consumer goods. When I was little there were perhaps five makes and models of televisions to choose from. Compare that to today. Hundreds. But rather than make it easier to find just what you want, sorting through all those choices is overwhelming. Plus, whatever you do pick, there will be even more options, features, and choices in a year or two, for less. Your TV will be outdated. Do you not buy a TV? Trade up every other year? It’s a treadmill with no end. You almost have to choose and then ignore the market, be content with your choice, enjoy your TV even if it’s not the latest and greatest. Or one would never be able to choose at all because it’s an ever moving target.
Online dating sites and cell phones have been the accelerants to explosive options in the dating world. But they are false options, really. Just because you have more “introductions” to meet somebody doesn’t mean it increases your dating pool of eligible candidates. It just makes it easier to contact a potential partner, but to do so requires wasting a lot of time culling through all the Mr./Miss Wrongs.
Questionnaires and profiles haven’t proven to be all that reliable in sorting out bad prospects. But the perception of there being a huge dating pool leads people to believe they can improve on their present prospects with the swipe of an app. Pretty tragic IMO.
Women wanted this. I think that most men would prefer to keep things simple. Do I see a developing conflict arising?
“Women have more choices now than they used to, however women are the ones who have a tendency to have a hard time making decisions, period. I have thought that maybe this is because they didn’t use to have to have good decision making skills, since decisions were made for them.”
That is an interesting thought. I do wonder if there isn’t something to that. I know I’m a lot more comfortable with having limited choices (or being told what I should do).
Tangentially, Emma had a similar topic a while back, which was linked to an article by Roosh. It wasn’t about relationships in particular, but freedom (“choices”) in general.
Here is a link to Emma’s piece:
https://emmatheemo.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/you-have-to-learn-to-cope-with-choice-and-freedom/
I mentioned habit pattern on that thread, but I kind of wonder if habit patterns aren’t more of an internal “security check” (like a check on choices) for me. They keep me focused.
Kind of like my OCDs, except more productive. 🙂
“or being told what I should do”
I have soooo many fun ways I could reply. Choices!
redpillgirlnotes: Last night, I sent you a message. Would you please let me know if you received it? There is reason to believe that you may not have. About the above topic, while I’m typing here, ‘choice’ is an extremely broad term. But the rest of this post is good news: the underlying subject gets close to the core of feminism’s problem. Now, I do not like talking about feminism too much. As as a male, I can sound like a jerk in doing so. But I have been both a feminist and then an anti- feminist for my whole life. redpillgirlnotes seems to be doing something unheard of with most people these days. She seems to be scratching, so to speak, at her own ego. Because what she is referring to, and I do not know if she was conscience of this at the time, is the female ego being a selfish thing. And so, consequently, the idea for females is to strive for selflessness. But I have to add that for all of humanity to work properly with each other, males have to continue to strive for being laid- back, to counteract their aggressive egos. A lot of this is already being done by institutions such as anger management and domestic violence classes. As a former Anti- feminist activist, I used to advocate all of the time for the female equivalent, in the name of equality, such as fear management and domestic selfishness classes. But for all of the verbalizing of that word, equality, I have been met with even more inequality by people giving me blank stares or laughing at me over such advocations as those above about the classes. So it is honorable that redpillgirlnotes is posting about the problems with the female ego. I usually do not try to over- emphasis my point, but it can not be emphasized enough how much of a spiritual meaning this has. This is the exact thing that all of the great spiritual leaders throughout history had spoken so much about- intentionally denying your own ego so that your spirit may be set free. That is the Truth. And as the Scripture goes, the Truth shall set you free.
Hi Robert, welcome. I don’t check email regular, so thanks for the heads up. I appreciate the kind words. If anything I have learned much of this the hard way, and share it in hopes others will avoid these common “modern day” foibles. Feminism sounds good on the surface but over a lifetime I have found it to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I believe men and women are fundamentally different and those differences are what makes it work, not equality and denial of such differences. Thanks for commenting and please do so often!
Robert,
Interesting comparison you do make.
Consider it I will
@ fuzzie I am not sure it’s fair to say “women wanted this.” It’s true women started feminism, but many women like myself merely inherited that mess, we didn’t choose it. I really see feminism as the female version of the blue pill. Women are taught such things before they are old enough to question it, indoctrinated almost, not knowing it will cause much unhappiness and isn’t “the way things are.” It would be like saying blue pill guys wanted it. Most blue pill guys are just running the broken script just like most women are running the flip version of that broken script. Sadly most are so unaware that they even have the choice to examine their belief system that they never realize there might be another, better, way.
@ eccentric agreed. More choices is not necessarily the same as higher quality choices. Sometimes it’s just more bad choices. I briefly tried online dating a few years back but am not a fan. One would think w all the profiles, photos, emails, phone calls, etc. it would increase the odds of a match but I think meeting people in real life works much better. I do know people it has worked for though, and to be honest I probably did not give it a fair shot. It felt too awkward to me, like a bunch of bad job interviews.
Robert,
Of course dying to self is an essential, if not the most essential aspect of the Gospel, but we contend with a very cunning and resourceful enemy. One that has indoctrinated us to call bad-good and good-bad.
The chief lie we’re told is that original sin applies to men – and not women, and as such our efforts should be placed towards reminding men of this fact…that the Natural Law of the Almighty is patriarchal bullshit that does not and has never worked.
Yet…what we see evolved – is the contrary.
And as far as men are concerned, as Cane Caldo noted once…we bow UP when we should be bowing DOWN to God. The problem is that men who bow down to God, are wholly undesirable to the modern woman. They choose the sons of perdition over the sons of God – all freaking day long.
After all, there are soooo many to choose from.
Just look in your girlfriends or wife’s cell-phone, her text messages, her Facebook Inbox…all day long – choices.
Pedat, very true. Technology has only fueled the fire. As predicted in prophesy too, no surprise.
I remember reading about someone from the Soviet Union (or some other Soviet-blog country) who was very stressed up by visits to American supermarkets…there were just too many alternatives.
@ David where I live there are many Russian immigrants. Shortly after they started arriving, I can clearly remember a 50-some year old Russian woman in traditional garb standing in the supermarket, clearly bewildered. She had about 50 packages of hot dogs in her cart. After extreme rationing and scarcity, I can only imagine what the typical supermarket must have seemed like to her!
It strikes me that there are at least 2 different types of choice problems. In Type 1, the person views the choice as terribly important, probably irrevocable, agonizes about it for a long time, and basically freezes, unable to come to a decision. Jeff can’t decide whether to marry Linda or Sandy, and winds up losing them both.
With the Type 2 problem, OTOH, the person makes the choice without fulling understanding its consequentiality, and later feels a strong compulsion to unmake it. Carl marries Ellen because they have been living together, get along OK, and the sex is pretty good; he doesn’t consider the magnitude of the decision he is making and that the trend line for the times they do *not* get along is not very positive.
@ David, indeed both indecision and rash decisions can backfire equally badly.
However truth is none of us have a crystal ball. We can’t forsee where our choices will lead. I know people who married after two weeks who still act like gaga newlyweds 30+ years later, and people who dated and lived together for 8+ years who married then didn’t last two years past that.
Another thing I have seen people do is romantacize paths not choosen. This can cause much regret and discontent. Yet they ever cannot know how that choice actually would have turned out, maybe better, maybe worse.
In general I think our culture is all too ready to see struggle in marriage as a “sign” they made the wrong choice and should divorce. Struggles suck no doubt, but it is often in the working through that grows occurs, not in their avoidance. The idea that life can be always happy and struggle free if only one makes the “right” choices is poppycock. It’s not possible.
I am fair certain one of the reasons removing TV/ main stream media from my life made such a huge positive impact on my happiness is I no longer get bombarded with adds for cool new features on the things I love. No idea what new weapons, cars or bikes have to offer so I no longer feel like striving to buy shit that really isn’t a major improvement on what I own.
Also saved me a shit ton of money.
Point being I think choice addiction is a legit issue with wider impact beyond the smp/ mmp
dying to self in relation to the Almighty is all good
When doing so to women and children(I repeat myself) it is all bad
It’s about the chain of command, My commander is Sky6, a woman’s commander is the man above her, same for kids. Commanders die to self in regards to their mission not their subordinates. Subordinates are how you as a commander accomplish the mission set assigned to you by a higher authority.
For a long time now I have thought only men can understand the Word of God
Recently I have been thinking only military men can understand the Word of God as so much of it has to do with authority, responsibility and duty and how the three intertwine
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This is so intelligent. And I think it speaks to women’s attitudes in capitalist societies. My aunts and mother are forever telling me I’m too picky and they grew up in a repressed, war torn state. Coincidence?