Simone Stolzoff

Or in today's day and age, you often don't even need someone else to give you permission to do it.

Just write the article.

Yeah.

One basic heuristic question that I like asking is which decision would be more expansive versus which decision is more contracted.

And I think what it does is it takes a decision out of your mind and brings it more into your body.

So I'll give you a personal example.

When I was in my early 20s, I was trying to figure out what I wanted for my romantic life.

And I was going on lots of dates.

And I thought the best way to figure out what I want is to try and date as many different types of people as possible.

And I was getting into relationships and I'd leave them after a month or two and try the next one.

And I realized that actually the greater source of novelty for me was through commitment, was getting through the honeymoon phase of a relationship and staying in it and learning that way as opposed to just trying to date many different people.

And so what was actually more expansive, what was actually more novel for me was staying with a relationship as opposed to the sort of crutch that I had relied upon, which is just like, oh, I'll try this for a date or two and then move on to the next.

There's freedom in that constraint as well.

I think the paradox of choice too often our problems today are through abundance as opposed to scarcity.

Yeah, there's this great experiment called the secretary problem.

And it's this thought experiment where you have to hire a secretary for your job, and there's 100 potential options.

And what happens is one secretary comes in the room, and then you have to decide right then and there whether or not you want to hire them.

And the question is, how many secretaries should you interview before you make your choice?

And what the research found is basically you should interview 37 secretaries, and then of those 37, determine which is your favorite secretary.

And then keep interviewing until you meet someone that is as good or not better than the first 37 that you interviewed and then hire them on the spot.