Comments on: Choice and happiness

By: Siel

Siel — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 22:36:27 +0000

I did really enjoy the book. Made me think about choice in terms I’d never thought ’bout before…

Callie — I like your apartment search method! My method was pretty similar — My budget limited a lotta stuff, so the pickins were rather slim. Still, I’m in my new place and am v. happy :)

Fletch — Our minds work so differently! Dude, just trying to “put a linear research boundary on the cost of a purchase” makes my head spin for hours –

Bradley — Thanks for the props! So sweet of you :) And I was wondering — where in LA do you live? Am curious to find out if you feel your particular location in our metropolis has made it easier to de-car?

By: bradley tuck

bradley tuck — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 21:28:49 +0000

I totally agree with you here. We’re presented with far too many choices , as if this is a good thing. We don’t need 20 types of balsamic dressing, we don’t NEED 15 white bread options. But we have them stuffed in our faces. I was always taught that if you can just be happy with what you have, hey, you’ll be happy. If you aren’t happy until you acquire the perfect object, you’ll never be happy. Because there is always something ‘better’. Unfortunaly, I think tthis also affects relationships. Instead of accepting and seeing the best parts of a person, we discard them as soon as they don’t fit our ideal of perfection. We seriously think there is someone out there who IS perfect, if we can JUST find them. Not gonna happen. Unlike a sandwich, you can’t have bit’s of a person ‘on the side’ for you to pick at. But we’ve all got so used to having choices and having things our way, that we’re doomed to unhappiness. By the way, I love your blog, I read it every day. I’ve lived in LA for 9 years, and still don’t have a car. I walk, bike, or bus everywhere.

By: mayumi

mayumi — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 18:49:33 +0000

thats gonna go on my must-read list.

By: Fletch

Fletch — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 02:20:35 +0000

Yeah, another book I’ve been meaning to read and haven’t yet gotten to. I have never understood consumer behavior based upon a preconceived ideal of perfection. Assuming that those 200 salad dressings and 1000 blue jean varieties cost app. the same, they should yield app. the same satisfaction. Why? Because if one dressing or blue jean really was perfect, consumers would rush to buy them, thus bidding up the price of each. Due to budget constraints (in my case, very limited ones), consumers would substitute less costly goods for the “perfect” ones.

From my perspective, the only truly perfect goods for a consumer are the absolute necessities of life that consumers, regardless of their budget constraint, will pay anything for: water, electricity (for heat and light), cereals (for food), etc. Extreme drug addicts (e.g.: heroin) exhibit this sort of behavior as well. The key is to ensure that individuals do not exploit others based upon the characteristics of these goods (as some at Enron did to California residents).

My suggestion: Put a linear research boundary on the cost of a purchase. Meaning, if your time is worth, say, $15 an hour and you want to buy a $20,000 car, invest 5% ($1,000 or ~67 hours of your time) in research. Obviously all these variables would be subject to consumer preferences. But, for a $40 pair of jeans, the above rule would yield only eight minutes of research.

Anyway, thanks for the post. Economists think way too little about what underpins consumer theory.

By: Jenn

Jenn — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 23:11:48 +0000

Thanks for this post. I’m not so great with decisions, and although I’m vegetarian and try to make eco-friendly choices, I never really thought about these as limiting factors, but I think that consciously thinking about these things might help me make better and easier decisions.