I invite you to discover below TED talk from Daniel Gilbert, psychologist and happiness expert, author of Stumbling on Happiness.
He is able to prove that having too many choices – something we consider being positive – can work in our disadvantage and make us unhappy.
I always considered choice to be a luxury, but Gilbert got me thinking… I find it deviously and devilishly interesting to see how humans can be tested into traps they create themselves. I know myself and I would have pondered and worried about having picked the right picture.
Thus, sometimes, not having a choice actually makes you happier – in the long run anyway.
Quote from Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759
“The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another… some of these situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others, but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice, or to corrupt the future tranquility of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse for (sic, printed quote says “from”) the horror of our own injustice.”