In the desire to keep our options open, we so often enslave ourselves. And in curtailing the abundance of possiblities in life, there is a sort of freedom. Watching options slip away, even if they are options we can't or shouldn't enjoy, gives us a sense of loss. But who has not felt a surge of liberation upon losing something they were clinging to, but finally didn't really want?
Every day I wake up pleased to be married, honored and terrified at the knowledge that I will soon be a mother, and secretly relieved that, for the next few years, I know exactly what my priorities will be.
Some excerpts from the article appear below:
Apparently they did not care so much about maintaining flexibility in the future. What really motivated them was the desire to avoid the immediate pain of watching a door close.
“Closing a door on an option is experienced as a loss, and people are willing to pay a price to avoid the emotion of loss,” Dr. Ariely says. In the experiment, the price was easy to measure in lost cash. In life, the costs are less obvious — wasted time, missed opportunities. If you are afraid to drop any project at the office, you pay for it at home.
“We may work more hours at our jobs,” Dr. Ariely writes in his book, “without realizing that the childhood of our sons and daughters is slipping away. Sometimes these doors close too slowly for us to see them vanishing.”
So what can be done? One answer, Dr. Ariely said, is to develop more social checks on overbooking. He points to marriage as an example: “In marriage, we create a situation where we promise ourselves not to keep options open. We close doors and announce to others we’ve closed doors.”
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