Fast Fiction

I had fun reading this article in The New Yorker today called Select All by Christopher Caldwell. It’s about how having choices, making decisions and feeling comfortable with those decisions may have a lot to do with our feelings of well-being.

And I think it’s true to a large degree. I think it’s one of the reasons I like shopping at Trader Joe’s. Let’s face it, when you go to the standard grocery store, you’re presented with 60 different choices for one thing - different sizes, squeezable bottles, brands, off-brands, names (catsup, ketchup, etc.). We try to eliminate choices. “I’m not buying an off-brand” or “I want organic”. This all makes it more manageable. Well, Trader Joe’s offers little of that. The most overwhelming part of the store is the cheese section, and not because it offers so much of the same thing, there are few different brands of the same cheese, just lots of different kinds of cheese.

I think a great deal of middle class depression can be eliminated by not shopping. I think if I didn’t go shopping as often, I’d probably be happier. Of course not having enough choice makes us feel trapped. Thank goodness I’m not the one who does the grocery shopping.