Down the Rabbit Hole

Jan 15

In The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin talks about the types of decision makers: "satisficers" and "maximizers." Want to guess what I am before I even tell you what those terms mean?

Instead of trying to paraphrase, I'll just quote Gretchen's blog:

Satisficers (yes, satisfice is a word, I checked) are those who make a decision or take action once their criteria are met. That doesn’t mean they’ll settle for mediocrity; their criteria can be very high; but as soon as they find the car, the hotel, or the pasta sauce that has the qualities they want, they’re satisfied.

Maximizers want to make the optimal decision. So even if they see a bicycle or a photographer that would seem to meet their requirements, they can’t make a decision until after they’ve examined every option, so they know they’re making the best possible choice.

I don't know, am I a maximizer if I can (and will and do) happily look at literally thousands of rugs before buying one for my living room?

Yup.

Witness: It occurred to me today, not for the first time, that my living room may function better with a pair of chairs opposite the couch. More on that later, but for now let me tell you this. I am only JUST BARELY THINKING about this plan, and I have gone down the ebay rabbit hole. IF I were to put a pair of chairs there, they would need to be small scale, an interesting shape, low, and ideally have a good fabric-to-wood ration so that a.) the frame doesn't compete with the big hulking coffee table and b.) reupholstery is not too expensive.

Some inspiration for what I mean: