Book: 20220210 to 20220226, "The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz

20220210 - Preface to the second edition

We only have limited attention, so we should not waste our attention on minor issues.

20220210 - Prologue. The Paradox of Choice: A Road Map

Choices sometimes are just distractions. They make us hard to tell what is important, what is not.

PART I | WHEN WE CHOOSE
20220210 - Chapter 1. Let’s Go Shopping 9

The difference among alternative products could be meaningless, so they are just distractions.

We need to understand what is important, what we really need. Then we can choose the right one.

The First Principle.

20220211 - Chapter 2. New Choices 23

A majority of people want more control over the details of their lives, but a majority of people also want to simplify their lives. p25

Just like what Elon Musk told us, to learn fast, we need to fully understand the trunk of the knowledge true. Then we can quickly learn the branches and leaves.

https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/elon-musks-2-rules-for-learning-anything-faster

How to choose our retirement plan if there are more than 5000 options? We need to fully understand financial investment. That's hard, and most of people are lazy.

Besides that, management fee is critical. The cheapest one could be the best one.

Identity is much less a thing people "inherit" than it used to be. p43

Identity is the imagination of ourselves we believe. The world is offering much more choices, so we are more capable of changing our destiny if we spend our time wisely.

PART II | HOW WE CHOOSE
20220212 - Chapter 3. Deciding and Choosing 47

Expected/predicted experience, actural experience, remembered experience.

They are different. Remembered experience is the most important one.

Vivid description is more powerful than statistics. p58

If a kid expect the study is hard, then it doesn't matter whether it is hard, he/she would try to avoid it; if at the end of the study time, the kid doesn't have good feeling about today's study, he/she would believe that the whole study that day is painful, although it could be just painful in the last few minutes.

As long as we include social interactions in our information gathering, and as long as our sources of information are diverse, we can probably steer clear of the worst pitfalls. p62

This is why freedom of speech is so critical, and how we get collective intelligence.

Anchoring and framing affect our decision. But I doubt about the "ticket missing" story. To buy another ticket means we need to spend extra time waiting in the queue, which is annoying.

Loss has more impact on us than gain. The joy from $100 gain cannot cover the pain from $100 loss, and $200 gain doesn't bring 2 times joy comparing with $100 gain. Same, $200 loss doesn't bring 2 times pain comparing with $100 loss.

That's why we prepare to take $100 than 50% chance of taking $200.

Endowment effect is real. That's why people don't want to throw away the stuff they don't need. If they purchased a ticket, they want to use it no matter what. So, we should be cautious before purchasing any ticket, membership, etc.

20220214 - Chapter 4. When Only the Best Will Do 77

I think, the problem of maximizer is that they don't realize that TIME and STRESS is part of the cost.

People have different standards regarding things. The difference is how they feel if they get what they want, or if they cannot get what they want.

PART III | WHY WE SUFFER

20220215 - Chapter 5. Choice and Happiness 99

Why more and more people believe that "What I think doesn't matter anymore."?

One of the reason must be "the winner takes all". This happens in MEME and thoughts area. There are less and less diversity in the world.

We need to sacrifice our time, convenience and freedom to get close connections with other people.

But the price of accepting constraints imposed by social institutions is a restriction on individual freedom. p117

For people's benefit,

Should we force some individuals to take COVID-19 vaccination?

Should we force some individuals to go to batterfield?

Should we force some individuals to work like slave?

Where is the boundary?

By using rules(MEME), presumptions(default choices), standards, and routines(habit) to constrain ourselves and limit the decisions we face, we can make life more manageable. p119

MEME can change much faster than Gene. This helps us to adapt to the changes of external environment relatively fast, and at the same time, save our attention for more urgent issues around us.

Besides of long term(what we need) and short term(what we want) goal, there is another one: what we like. This one is based on our emotion and instinct. We don't even think about it before the action. That's why we smoke and drink COKE, why we "cannot" read because there are too many words in the books.

20220218 - Chapter 6. Missed Opportunities 117

What do we need? What do we want? What do we like?

We want to quit, but we like smoking. What we need is healthy body and sharp mind.

Based on "Thinking, fast and slow", we can only remember our peak and ending. So we should only focus on what we need. What we want and what we like don't matter, because we are going to forget them soon. We should always try to create more peak points and move ourselves to higher position.

The foundation of "what we need" is our identity. Not any external stuff. Materialized objects are not part of us. They will disappear sooner or later.

Most of people are quite busy. They don't have much spare time, so they don't need to think it over about how to use their spare time. And most of people are not super rich, so they don't need to worry how to use their money wisely.

For me, one of the headache at the moment is where I should live? Close to seashore or on hill? Big block of land or nice cottage? Convenient location for shopping or easy to go out for hike? Or, does it matter at all?

Or, these are not important. I need none of these values, although I want them. Actually I want to save time. Which means, convenience is most important and large house(which needs more cleaning and maintenance) is less valueable. If I cannot find the "perfect" one, it's still OK.

Time is the ultimate resource. So many things should be measured by time. As attention decides the quality of time spending, meditation is necessary.

20220219 - Chapter 7. "If Only . . .": The Problem of Regret 147

For long period of time, we regret that we didn't take actions; for short period of time, we regret that we took wrong actions.

What we did in the past years affects our decisions for tomorrow. That's inevitable, and sometimes wrong. What we did in the past is sunken cost. We should make decisions for tomorrow based on our current position.

20220221 - Chapter 8. Why Decisions Disappoint: The Problem of Adaptation 167

We can only remember peak and ending. However, no matter what kind of peak or good ending we just experienced, our mind will get used (adapts) to it soon. So, unless our lives keep going extremely high and extremely low, we cannot remember much.

Can meditation change that? Can we memorize experiences through live in the moment? If my understanding is correct, when Eckhart Tolle drink coffee, he do it as if it's his first time to drink coffee. He doesn't get used to the flavour of coffee, and he doesn't compare it to the coffee he drank before.

Our brain is the major organ for sex. Not just that. Our brain is the major organ for almost all activities. When we shoot someone in a computer game, our brain pretend we shot someone. When we sit in a roller coaster, our brain tells us it's so much fun.

This means, we can get/create fun from many trivial daily activities if we want, and boring job(coding, reading earning reports, etc.) could be full of fun. For the same reason, why sometimes we don't notice the flavour of a delicious dish? Because we are thinking about something else. The major organ(our brain) is not paying attention to the food. Maybe, this is why street food taste so good.

20220222 - Chapter 9. Why Everything Suffers from Comparison 181

Why we can adapt to almost any changes? Because our mind is still same. External stuff, including our body, are all illusions.

How to get more peaks? Keep our expectation modest. But I believe the better way is to build a better self. We should expect more from ourselves, not from external stuff.

What's the relationship between group and pond? Pond is a local environment, and group is the team which cooperate to compete with other groups. Pond doesn't compete with other ponds.

We should always stay in strong teams, but no need to always choose higher ponds. However, higher ponds offer better and more opportunities, although there are more stress and negative feelings.

Is it decided by gene that we are maximizers or satisficers? Not completely. We can change it by self-hypnosis.

20220226 - Chapter 10. Whose Fault Is It? Choice, Disappointment, and Depression 201

How to avoid depression?

We are not perfect, and the world is full of randomness. Do something to improve ourselves, and accept that the unlucky things keep happening. If we keep improving ourselves, and keep trying, then sooner or later, we can get good result. So, no need to get depressed. Depression doesn't help.

We should focus on important things. "Good Enough" is good enough to all other minor issues.

What is important? The ultimate resource is TIME. The length of the time and the quality of the time is important.

Spirit, identity and capability belong to ourselves. Money, and even body are external material.

The ultimate goal should be using our limited TIME to improve our spirit.

PART IV | WHAT WE CAN DO
20220226 - Chapter 11. What to Do About Choice 221

Priority and cost.

Priority let us know what is good enough, so we can choose quickly.

Cost let us know whether we should ignore the potential oppotunities.

Should we use hypnosis to change our mind and lives? This is a wrong question, because everyone use hypnosis to change their mind and lives, cause better or worse result.

Why some people think snake is scary and disgusting? Why puppy is dorable and cute? Our gene take a major part of the reasons, but not all. If someone had a snake as pet in childhood, or got seriously injured by a dog, they would hypnotise themselves whenever there is a chance. Then, years later, they changed their feeling of snake and dog completely.

We can do good hypnosis intentionly, and avoid the bad ones.