The Paradox of Choice

During Christma season, giving gifts is a pretty common tradition and now that I have a job, its can get a lot harder when done with the wrong mindset

Now that I actually have money to buy stuff for my parents and siblings, its gotten a lot harder to actually buy something for them. Before, I didnā€™t even have to get anything because it wasnā€™t really expected from me. An origami or some other craft could do, maybe some candy and goodies like that, even less when I was younger, if at all.

However, now that I got a job and have decent money and not much to necessarily spend it onā€”thanks to living with my parentsā€”Iā€™ve felt the need to just give something more expensive to them, just because I can.

Obviously, thatā€™s not the point at all of these times, my parents taught me that very well. However, I am grateful with my family and I just wanted to show that gratitude in a way Iā€™ve never been able to do so before. And of course, I was faced with a huge amount of options. I donā€™t know if it was a YouTube Short or a full video, but I remember hearing about the ā€œParadox of Choiceā€.

Basically, if you have 3 or 4 things to choose from, you will probably take some time and pick the best product from the options you have, but once you get a thousand products that do the same thing, no matter what choice, you canā€™t be sure if there was something else that was better for you, which ends up leading to stress and more problems.

Whatever, I was weak, and I decided to just give them some money and let them pick the stuff they want, and we had an alright shopping day, we are all adults anyway.

Right when I was going to publish this as is, I remembered one time my parents just gave me a spinning top for christmas, it wasnā€™t expensive or even good quality. Maybe it wasnā€™t actually a christmas gift and something they got for me on a whim some other day. But I remember being so happy because of it, and trying to learn how to get it spinning all the time. I was happy with something that simple, and recalling that memory at this momentā€”it got me thinking. I didnā€™t even learn how to actually spin a top until months later but, I was happy.

By the way, due to the days I have left I think Iā€™ll stick to shorter posts for now and put the ā€œFavorite XYZ of the yearā€ posts on hold until 2024 comes up, but Iā€™ll still try to do one more next weekend. What will it be? Anime? Movies? Videogames? Youā€™ll find out soon enough.

This is day 89 of #100DaysToOffload

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