My daughter, Rory, is what I like to call a “Both/And” kind of girl. When given the option between two good things, her answer is always both. The kind of girl who wears an Elsa dress under a kitty cat tutu, if you will. For example:

Me: “Would you like to go to the park, or stay home and do crafts with Mommy?”
Ro: “I want to go to the park… AND stay home and do crafts with Mommy.”

Anyone who has spent time with young children knows that choice can be a powerful motivator. Kid doesn’t want to put his shoes on? “Would you like to wear your Crocs or Paw Patrol light-up shoes?” Kid is having a hard time eating dinner? “Would you like to eat some chicken nuggets or a PB&J?”

The ability to choose is imperative for anyone to feel empowered and self-driven in life’s day-to-day tasks. People want to know the work they are doing is theirs, not thrust upon them by an outside agent. Choice has a psychological underpinning of freedom, and for Americans especially, we believe freedom is our God-given right.

While having options can be both humanizing and motivating, researchers have adversely found that too many choices is paradoxically debilitating. In a foundational study by Iyengar and Lepper, customers at a heavily trafficked marketplace encountered either a stall with 6 options of jam or a stall with 24 options, and they concluded that while the stall with more jams initially attracted more customers, the more options a person had, the more indecision they experienced.

Since this 2000 study, psychologists have documented what is now the well-known phenomenon of the paradox of choice. People crave variety and must have choice in order to be psychologically fulfilled; yet, given too many choices, people will rely on elimination strategies, defer decision, search for new alternatives, choose the default option, or simply choose not to choose, as in the case of Rory girl.

I don’t have a full analysis of this yet. It’s just what I have been thinking about lately. God designed humans to have this tension inside of them — the need to have a choice, and the need to be protected from a plethora of stimulation. From the Garden of Eden, versions of this paradox have existed. God gave humans options in the food they could eat, but limited them from an overabundance of choices that would ultimately only open up a Pandora’s box of more and more choices. And history has told of how unlikely we are to make the right decision, or to make any decision at all.

One obvious example is the upcoming election. I often feel paralyzed by indecision when it comes to understanding politics, not because there are unlimited options — we only really have two — but because with either option comes a whole host of issues, and with each one of those issues I feel my stance is either too vague or too nuanced to be properly represented.

For now, I am doing my best to accept whatever God puts right in front of me. The election is one large, looming decision that can feel all-consuming at times. However, the choices I, Grace, am faced with on a daily basis are smaller, mundane, but still eternally valuable. I will try to let my yes be yes and no be no, and ignore the endless outcomes and alternatives that distract and paralyze me.

Iyengar, Sheena S., and Mark R. Lepper. “When Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2000, Vol. 79, No. 6, 995-1006.