I was excited, I finally got the Holiday Gadget issue of Men’s health in my mailbox. All geared up to see the exciting tech gadgets I could dream of Santa dropping in my stocking the night before Christmas. I actively started thumbing through the pages salivating at every turn, feeling the warm, plastic components lighting up with all that battery powered wonder in my hand. I could feel my heart thumping at the turn of each page… Now this was living!! I noticed curiously that between the pictures and all those sexy women holding these beloved gadgets there was some kind of written message the author of these pages was trying to convey. I stopped drooling and started reading. And what a message there was to be had.

The author of the tech guide 2006 had been enlightened. He had partaken in a study that involved consumer choices. Analysts for years have been watching the way we buy goods. They have realized that more choices may not always mean more sales. In fact they did a study that involved samples at a grocery store when there were just six samples and a free coupon to take to the register almost everyone took one home, as the samples doubled and tripled consumers were exponentially less likely to take home a free sample. Is more not better?? Have we all been duped?? I started thinking… the article went on to say that the more choices we have, can make it harder to make a decision, making us often frozen to decide, so we don’t decide at all, or it was found that if we do decide on a product we are more likely than not to be unsatisfied by this product. The article found that there were two kind of people, the “Maximizer” or the “Satisficer“. The maximizer must examine all the possibilities to find the best possible option; they are what I consider perfectionists, Satsificers on the other hand are content with results that are good enough. What does this translate into??? for Maximizer’s they are forever unhappy, they frequently have buyers remorse, when they do find the “perfect” product they focus on what the product doesn’t have, remorseful of the items they may have left behind that were better. In fact the Maximizer lived life like this, they usually found jobs that paid 20 percent more but for every psychological measure to be thought of they were found to feel worse. In this world of abundant and often endless options expectations are made even higher. This perpetuates the cycle………

I realized something………. The more we have most importantly money or good looks, physical ability or inheritance, the more we are to find ourselves unhappy. This is based on our choices we are confronted with and the new found options we have. When we have little money our choices we are limited severely by what we can afford. If we live within our means and limit our options we will find ourselves more happy, we will not lament on what we do not have, but on what we do have, people always say this but it makes sense now even more. You limit your choices, you are more content with your decisions, and you are infinitely more happy!! Same for good looks. for example, I am short and on the attractiveness scale maybe a five (OK I may be being a bit generous) Therefore my pool of potential mates is limited. This does not mean I will not be more happy in marriage, in fact I may be happier, simply as I am more likely to select one based on more reasonable qualifications of a lifelong partner and I may be happier with my decision based on the fact that I value even greater my ability to acquire such a fine specimen (given my limited pool). Now if my wife were to read this she may be very unhappy with me, but she shouldn’t be, because I predict we are actually lucky… Just look at Tom Cruise….

So my conclusion………..
if we have enough, we will be happier, we will not always want more, we will not look for the greener grass, we will not lament our loss, we will limit our choices, we will see God in these gifts, we will love more profoundly, and not be tempted by our looks, we will find our decisions to be good because the will be limited by our pool of choices….
Thus balance is the key.

I found this exciting for a reason

as we go to buy our house I realize I will have much less to spend.
I will find happiness in the fact my main expense is what I use most, my home, the place I sleep the place I organized my life, my thoughts and my dreams.
A walk on the beach is free
Breakfast with family, is cherished
An offshore breeze on a West Coast Swell, is untouchable.
My lack of free cash will limit what I can “buy”
I may actually be freed by my rediculous house payment
I will focus on that which I have
I will be happier because I will have less choices to make me doubt all the wonderful blessings I have right in front of me

I say this as our first trip to Europe seemed better than our second
why???
we had no money, we were soooo happy to be sleeping with bed bugs in Rome
Second trip, we lamented often our time on the bus
why
we knew deep down we could have afforded more
we wasted time lamenting our lost choices……
You value more what you have when you have less!!!!

I HAVE FOUND THE KEY TO LIFE

JUST DON’T ask me to put it in one sentence!