My niece shared this with me and while dated, it presents some thoughtful ideas on the over abundance of choices in our modern lives and the impact it has. I marked several passages and was convinced of his case within the first 50 or so pages after which it got very repetitive. In writing up my review I discovered I'd already read the book in 2010 (sigh).
Quotes:
"a majority of people want more control over the details of their lives, but a majority of people also want to simplify their lives. There you have it--the paradox of our times."
"...we evaluate positive experiences on the basis of how good they feel at their best, and how good they feel at the end."
"...we all hate to lose...loss aversion."
"Once something is given to you, it's yours. Once it become part of your endowment, even after a very few minutes, giving it up will entail a loss [endowment effect]."
"[On Regret]...we don't close the psychological door on the decisions we've made, and as time passes, what we've failed to do looms larger and larger."
"...to give away or throw away something would force you to acknowledge a loss [sunk costs]…being sensitive to sunk costs is a mistake. That's over."
"...[we] get used to --adapted to-- each of our sources of pleasure, and they stop being sources of pleasure. Because of adaptation, enthusiasm about positive experience don't sustain themselves."
Published: 2004 Read: July-August 2021 Genre: Non-fiction, philosophy
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