Buying the perfect rug

With unlimited access to unlimited information coupled with varying actors presenting us with information based on our perceived hopes, wants, and dreams, buying the perfect rug becomes nearly impossible. Since I’m typing rug on Safari, I likely will see an ad for a rug on the next website I find that has ads. Because so many people and businesses sell rugs, not only am I going to see rugs as ads on websites but when I conduct an internet search for a rug, I will see even more. Rug overload.

I will see rugs from companies that spent the most money on ads to get to the top of Google searches on “buying the perfect rug.” Based on my browsing and purchase histories, I will see varying rugs at varying prices on all the large marketplaces (e.g., Amazon or Wayfair). Because I typed an opinion-based question, I will see opinion articles from major news outlets like Forbes and answers on question-and-answer websites like Quora. These company’s advertisers will also attempt to sell me a rug. And because I now have outlets competing for my time, I will suddenly see ads for discounted rugs, and the deeper I go into my rug-buying adventure, the more marketing and advertising shenanigans I will see. This creates another problem: overchoice (or choice overload).

Choice overload

Alvin Toffler’s 1970 book Future Shock is where Americans became acquainted with the idea that we may have too many choices to make, and as a result, will become paralyzed in our ability to make our best choice. As long as there is not an obvious winning option and we don’t have a strong preference before making a choice, choice overload becomes a psychological impairment in which we end up flipping a coin to make a decision.

Marketers know this. This is why they spend money on ads trying to eliminate the strong preference and obvious winning option problems from choice overload. This is why companies spend millions of dollars each year “ethically” purchasing reviews. Amazon itself has its own review program in which it gives free products to reviewers to review. So, we have marketers marketing things to us based on what they know about us, and when we attempt to differentiate among many products, we have to wade through dozens, maybe even hundreds, of coerced reviews. Unlimited choices and unlimited reviews of those choices make buying a rug nearly impossible. The only option is to become an expert.

Become an expert

You and I can become either expert decision-makers or experts in whatever we are attempting to purchase. I choose the former, though there are certain product categories in which I attempt to become the latter (e.g., home, car). For a rug, you could go into a traditional oriental-rug-making business and become the equivalent of an apprentice to the owners, where you spend hundreds of hours to determine what are the qualities of the best, longest-lasting rugs at the fairest prices.

Our alternative is to become a better decision-maker. This takes a similar amount of time, but we can then apply our new decision-making skills to many choices across many domains. Simply, becoming a better decision-maker involves conducting research on behavioral economics, self-analyses, and patience. Over time, anyone can become better at making decisions by understanding oneself and associated blind spots while weighing things like cost, time, and effort. Because I spend time trying to become a better decision-maker, my mom thinks I’m fickle.

Changing one’s mind

About fifteen years ago, I very much wanted to become a physician. I had my eyes and heart set on becoming a medical doctor. Lo and behold, I failed. Fast forward five years, and I was fairly certain that I was going to become a big, powerful corporate lawyer on a partner track at a large firm. That did not happen (more choice, less fail). What do these two things have in common other than being very lofty goals? These two goals were my goals before I had enough information to make an informed decision on what it meant to become a medical doctor or a corporate lawyer.

Instead of not committing to anything, I committed, learned, and realized that I did not want to pursue either of those careers. I weighed cost, time, effort, and I understood myself enough to recognize that those professions and younger versions of me did not align. On the outside, I changed my mind, in a big way, very quickly. On the inside, I gathered information, tested a few hypotheses, and started down a path that I ultimately abandoned before it was too late. The question is, am I fickle, or am I updating my decision-making based on new information?

Updating our perspectives

We must update our perspectives as new information comes in. This is why revisionist history is so hard to read. Those who lived in 1970 or 1870 did not have the same information that we do. They did not have access to history as we do. Culturally, we exist in an evolutionary range that has a clear middle.

This applies as much to society as it does to individuals who change their minds. We must change our minds and update our perspectives, but we must make these updates with intention. We must remain steadfast in our approach to updating our decisions and refrain from needlessly changing our minds on the whims of external influences. When we buy a rug, we can take as much time as necessary and update our perspectives on our ideal rug at that time. If we learn that our understanding of an ideal rug isn’t what we thought, we can change our minds, freely. There will always be more rugs. Similarly, as new information constantly rushes in, we must wade through the garbage to seek out the best information to use to make the best decisions we can, in the moment. Always update and always improve.