Choice and freedom can often be synonymous. So the more options to choose from would seem to indicate more freedom, yet having lots of choice in life can be a double edged sword. On one hand choice is important because everyone's needs are different. I like to buy organic where possible and for the things I struggle to make at home I want to be able to purchase it without sugar or lots of additives. My neighbour probably prefers to just get the cheapest things available as long as it tastes good and the lady with allergies, further down the road, has allergies, therefore she has to avoid ingredients which will make her sick, even if it's not organic.
Hmmm...orange or pink...pink or orange?
However, too much choice can become more stressful than it is useful. Going into a supermarket, the choices for one product can be overwhelming, which is probably why once we've decided on a product we like, we just continue to buy the same thing every time. We simplify things to make things less stressful for ourselves. Even simpler would be a shop which only stocked one option for everything we use, as long as it meets out criteria, but that would restrict the choice and freedom of others who don't necessarily want the same as us.
In a recent article I was discussing how you make your own happiness. Often by having no choice, you have to make the most of what you do have. However, when faced with more choice, you can end up second guessing yourself as to whether you made the right choice then end up in a loop of regrets. Certainly not a good path to happiness.
So I rather feel that as individuals, too much choice can be detrimental, but as a collective it can be beneficial and potentially liberating. Yet even if choice was limited, wouldn't we still learn to live with that?
Choice comes into other aspects of life other than consumerism. As @eco-alex mentions in the Question of the Week post, arranged marriages seem to fail less often than marriages where the partners choose one another. Is this because the choice of other options has been removed? A marriage which doesn't end in divorce may not necessarily be a love filled marriage. When the cultural norms are that you don't have a choice and/or that marriages are until death do you part, then surely there are going to be more successful marriages, from the outside looking in? Having said that, an arranged marriage can be just as love filled as a chosen one and the rates of those marriages could be equal given the choice or not. However, is an arranged marriage, where the couple aren't the best romantic match, necessarily an unhappy marriage if the couple make the most of it, knowing that there is no other choice? Compare this with a chosen marriage where the same situation leads to resentment over potentially wasted years because they know they could have changed their mind and ended it at any point.
Once again, another great brain teaser from the @ecotrain Question of the Week. What do you think? Is having more options a good thing or a bad thing?