Picture yourself at an ice cream shop with 47 flavors, each one looking absolutely delicious. Twenty minutes later, you're still standing there, cone in hand, wondering if rocky road would have been better than the mint chip you finally chose. Sound familiar? Welcome to the modern predicament where abundance has become its own form of torture.

We've built a world where you can choose from 175 salad dressings at the grocery store and swipe through thousands of potential romantic partners before breakfast. Yet somehow, all this choice hasn't made us happier—it's made us anxious, regretful, and perpetually convinced we're missing out on something better. The cruel irony? Having too many good options often leaves us less satisfied than having just a few.

There are two types of decision-makers in this world: maximizers who need the absolute best, and satisficers who just need something good enough. If you've ever spent three hours researching the optimal brand of dental floss, congratulations—you're a maximizer. And according to research, you're probably less happy than your satisficer friend who grabbed the first minty one they saw.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz discovered something counterintuitive: people who always seek the best option consistently report lower satisfaction with their choices, more regret, and higher rates of depression. Maximizers might land better jobs with higher salaries, but they feel worse about them. They might find objectively superior products, but enjoy them less. It's like winning a race but feeling miserable because you keep thinking about how you could have run it faster.

The problem isn't the pursuit of excellence—it's the impossibility of the task. When you're trying to find the best restaurant for dinner tonight, you're not just choosing food; you're comparing infinite variables across options you'll never fully know. Even worse, your brain keeps generating hypothetical alternatives that might have been perfect. The maximizer's curse is that seeking the best guarantees you'll never be satisfied with what you get.

Here's a fun mental experiment: imagine you're choosing between two equally amazing job offers. Before you've even decided, your brain is already fast-forwarding to imagine how much you'll regret not taking the other one. This anticipated regret—the misery we expect to feel about the road not taken—actually influences our present happiness more than the actual choice itself.

This psychological phenomenon explains why people at buffets often feel worse than those ordering from a simple menu. Every bite of your pasta reminds you that you're not eating the sushi, the curry, or that beautiful roasted salmon. You're not just eating one meal; you're mourning all the meals you didn't choose. The more attractive the alternatives, the more they haunt the option you selected.

Social media has weaponized anticipated regret into an art form. Every Friday night at home triggers thoughts of all the parties, concerts, and adventures you're missing. Every career choice gets shadowed by LinkedIn updates about the amazing trajectories you didn't pursue. We've created a culture where every decision carries the weight of infinite alternative universes, and surprise—it's exhausting.

Herbert Simon, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on decision-making, coined the term 'satisficing'—a blend of satisfy and suffice. It's not about lowering your standards; it's about knowing when your standards have been met. Think of it like this: maximizers are trying to find the highest point in a mountain range while blindfolded. Satisficers just need to find a peak tall enough to see the sunset.

The magic happens when you set your criteria before you start looking. Want a new laptop? Decide it needs 8GB RAM, costs under $800, and has decent reviews. First one that meets all three? Buy it and never look back. This isn't settling—it's recognizing that the time and mental energy you save is worth more than marginal improvements. Studies show satisficers are not only happier with their decisions but also waste less time making them.

The secret weapon of satisficing is the 'good enough threshold.' For small decisions (lunch, Netflix shows, shampoo brands), your threshold should be low—first acceptable option wins. For major decisions (career, partner, home), set your must-haves and nice-to-haves clearly, then commit once you find something that hits all the must-haves and most of the nice-to-haves. The paradox resolves itself: by accepting good enough, you often end up happier than those who found 'better.'

The abundance of choice was supposed to liberate us, but instead it's turned everyday decisions into Olympic events where everyone loses. The path forward isn't to eliminate options—it's to change how we relate to them. When you realize that the perfect choice is a myth and that 'good enough' is actually pretty great, decision-making transforms from a source of anxiety into just another thing you do.

Next time you're paralyzed by excellent options, remember: the goal isn't to make the best choice possible. It's to make a good choice quickly and then commit to making it work. Because in the end, a good decision you're happy with beats a perfect decision that haunts you every time.