Paralysis by Analysis & Paradox of Choices!

Paralysis by Analysis & Paradox of Choices!

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Ever heard of the maxim "analysis leads to paralysis" or "paralysis by analysis"? Or perhaps, you may have come across the phrase "paradox of choices"? Even if you have not, you would remember those times when you over-thought quite a bit and could not make a satisfactory and meaningful decision (if at all) either on account of over-thinking or faced by the in-numerous choices you had. This is the dilemma of the modern world. We are given too many choices or there is too much information out there courtesy aggressive advertising, flamboyant marketing plus sales pitch, the internet and apps like Google.

For checking even on a simple product that you need, it is not easy - consider the number of similar products out there on the supermarket shelves that are waiting for you to choose. As if that is not enough, if you research on the internet, there is no perfect or suitable product or close to it - each one has its own pros and cons - mix that with the fluidity of opinions that come from various people giving their own perspectives on each one of those products!

The world will tell you that it is good to have so many choices compared to the past when we either did not have any or too few choices but believe us when we say, it is not easy to choose! Sometimes or may be many times, "less is actually more" and "too much choice is stressful"! If you recall your past experiences with over-thinking, over-analysis and deep logic, you will note that they all end up complicating situations without any visible or tangible benefits. That is not all, they can lead to stifling your creativity, inability to make decisions or making poor ones and overall making you unhappy! That is not to say, they should be done away with but the trick is to balance them at the right level and not to overdo them!

Anyway, here is a short story of an unusual test that is focussed on simplistic and creative thinking!

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On one fine sunny day, a Philosophy Professor was in class with his students. While discussing many aspects of the subject, he spontaneously gave an unusual test to his students.

He lifted his chair up and placed it on the table. He then turned towards the whiteboard and wrote, "Prove that this chair does not exist..."

Naturally, the class was taken by surprise by this unusual turn of events and the test issued to them by the Professor. For a few moments, they were in a state of confusion. However, they immediately pulled themselves up and got to the task at hand. They were Philosophy students after all and this was not the first time that the Professor had surprised them. So they began tackling the problem given to them writing long complex explanations.

One would expect that this process would be time consuming but surprise, surprise - one student completed the test in just a minute and handed the paper to the Professor. This attracted many surprised glances from only his classmates but his Professor too.

Several days later, the students were awarded their grades for the test. Interestingly, the best answer was selected as the one from the student who had completed the test in just one minute.

His answer was just 2 words, "What chair??"

➤     Life Lesson: Too often, we fall in the habit of over-thinking a lot when attacking a problem. We may forget that sometimes, the answers are just simple... Further, all we need to do for finding a simple solution could be move ourselves out of our established way of thinking and adopt a lateral thinking approach. Lateral thimking usually promotes creative thinking too.

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