Originally Posted by
penwash
Somehow I don't think anyone here read my post other than TSherbs.
I succinctly summarized the factors (there may be more) that can contribute to anxiety or mild stress when faced with choices.
Oh well, whatever, I'm done here.
Read it, reinforced it.
What bothers me a bit here, as in a number of other threads, is the insistence by an individual (doesn't matter who it is) that because they don't feel influenced by something then surely nobody else will be. This is quite frankly an absurd position to take when the scientific literature is quite clear that a particular influence affects the majority of a given population. An understanding of normal statistical distribution should alleviate this issue, and yet many do not appear to understand the implication.
Bottom line here is that it is well-known and understood that increasing the number of options is positively correlated with stress levels and negatively correlated with satisfaction/happiness. Pen and ink manufacturers have, over the last few years, appeared to ramp up the production of as many option as they could manage. This can and does lead to stress for pen enthusiasts, as has been noted previously by the volume of posts concerning the difficulty in making choices or in assessing choices after they have been made. More broadly, the breadth of choices in our 1st world lives is often immense, and most people suffer some kind of downtick in happiness when facing it, irrespective of claims to be a perfectly rational person (such an animal does not exist).
Another bit that bothers me is that we, as more experienced fountaineers than the average beginner, actively (if often unwittingly) promote uncertainty for the beginner. No doubt the same can be said for many other hobbies.
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