What should I call this?

Spent a little time with the Wall Street Journal this weekend and came across this review of The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar. Now this is not a book I’d buy – I don’t leave much room on my shelves for nonfiction, especially anything with studies that might be outdated in a few years. And this book review tells me all I need to know about a problem I have.

Indecision.

For instance, I have been debating about what to post next. Should I write shorter posts? Should I finish one I started a long time ago or move on to something else? Should I just read the Wall Street Journal instead?


Now if I thought the book had a fail proof method for making the best decision every time, I might have to buy it.

Indecisiveness is probably my most annoying habit, except maybe when I whine about not being about to make decisions. My inability to make a decision and stick to it causes more emotional turmoil than any bigger quandary I might be deciding about, mainly because I muse and fret and worry about little decisions more than big ones.



And maybe this book addresses that. But what caught my eye is an argument the author, a Sikh woman, makes for arranged marriages from her personal experiences and from studies that show that at the 10 year point, couples in love marriages are less happy than those in arranged marriages. I wonder though, if the study also looked at couples in marriages where divorce isn’t an option. If an action is unthinkable, if there is no option, no choice available, you make the best of what you have.



And that’s what the rest of the study seems to argue: When people are overwhelmed by choices they buy less. (Although not necessarily: Last week a new commissary opened. The old one had been destroyed in Katrina, and for the past five years a temporary one has been open in an old warehouse. It was small, the aisles were narrow, and it had a limited and poorly organized selection. Everyone loved to complain about it: retirees clogged the aisles, moms with babies could be heard across the store, what you wanted wasn’t always available. But you could shop for a week in about 30 minutes because the choices were so limited.



Well, now the new commissary opened, and it is big and beautiful and clean for now. The aisle are wide, the buggies are bigger. But Friday after exercising I went in to grab milk and some fruit and vegetables for the weekend, but came out with a full cart and spent well over an hour shopping. All my sweat was dry by the time I left. The line was awful (of course it was lunchtime on payday – nonmilitary readers may not realize what a mistake it is to shop at that time; the only worse time is 5 pm on payday, followed by the next day. Proof that lots and lots of people in the military are living paycheck to paycheck.)



Grocery shopping was just one of the examples given. The other one that caught my eye was about the study that originated the idea for the book. Ms Iyengar initially studied how children play with lots of toys vs. how they play with few toys. Iyengar probably didn’t need a study to tell her that children with just a few toys played more creatively than those who had a lot toys to choose from.



And this reminded me of Melanie’s toy manifesto – probably a good idea to have it written out, so you don’t have to make decisions all the time about toy choices. I agree with a lot of what Melanie says in theory, but practicing it is harder. Take, for instance, wooden toys. I love the idea of wooden toys and cloth dolls – I’ve yearned for a Waldorf doll. But every wooden toy, except blocks and swords (including wooden trains), have always been bypassed for the more colorful plastic varieties. Happily, the boys have always loved legos and playmobils, which I love for them to play with, but they also love action figures of every stripe. And as for dolls, well, we haven’t been overrun by Barbie, but plastic babies and American Girl dolls and their knock-offs take up a lot of floor space. (My happiest garage sale find: a wooden kitchen set for $20. So that takes up the rest of the floor.)



It was easier for me to get rid of toys when we had fewer, and I had no sentimental attachment to superheroes, like my husband does (we keep Hulk and GI Joes around just for him :). Now I’m overwhelmed by the thought of sorting through Legos and Playmos. I figure one day we’ll just dump them all. Sometimes my kids don’t even want to go in their rooms themselves because they are overwhelmed by the clutter.



This article has me newly rededicated to filling some bags for my friend who is having a garage sale fundraiser in a couple of weeks. 3 garbage bags of outgrown, unloved winter clothes and a few stuffed animals and puzzles (which seem to reproduce during the night) are already waiting disposal. But I’m a little afraid myself to tackle the clutter in the boys’ room.



Meanwhile I’m trying to get back into a routine – a lifestyle that minimizes decisions. Which may be while since we’re heading into the last six weeks of school with all the end of the year projects and events, including a First Communion in a couple of weeks. I already miss Lent. Perhaps I should make an Easter resolution of trying to keep focused on celebrating rebirth and resurrection rather than on scurrying around trying to decide what’s for lunch.