The Gift Card Is The Hardest Part

One of my freelance clients gave me a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble as a holiday gift. I love books; even more, I love free books. And yet the $25 remains unspent. The same thing happened to Ben and me when a relative gave us $100 as a gift with the proviso that we spend it on something fun. That clause so scrambled our brains that it took us months to agree on a plan. We referred to the money as our “frivolous dollars” and applied our full energy and intelligence to the task of squeezing every last drop of fun out of them.

It was exhausting.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz offers sage advice in his book The Paradox of Choice about satisficers vs. maximizers. Gretchen Rubin summarizes nicely:

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.

Most people are a mix of both approaches. For example, one friend was a satisficer about renting an apartment, but a maximizer about buying an apartment. As a consequence, he and his wife are renting an apartment now, because they had to move, and they’re still searching for the perfect apartment to buy.

In a fascinating book, The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz argues that satisficers tend to be happier than maximizers. Maximizers must spend a lot more time and energy to reach a decision, and they’re often anxious about whether they are, in fact, making the best choice.

I am totally 110% a satisficer. Until I’m not. What’s frustrating to me is that often, when the stakes are lowest, my maximize-y instincts come out. $25 to spend on books, or $100 on fun? Obsessiveness activate! Suddenly I need to spend it the best possible way. Last night I bent myself to the task, at last, and sat for easily an hour combing through 31 pages of “Bargain Books” until I amassed a collection of six good-looking novels, and all on clearance for some ungodly reason:

Salvage the Bones, Jessmyn Ward ($5.38)
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce ($5.38)
Night Film, Marsha Pessl ($5.38)
Someone, Alice McDermott ($6.28)
The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, Anton DiSclafani ($6.28)
The Glass Room, Simon Mawer ($4.48)

TOTAL: $33.18

I could knock out one of them and end up pretty neatly at $25 and, still, bonus, qualify for free shipping. But I could also just buy, like, one novel I had actually been looking forward to, like the new Hilary Mantel collection. Or save it for when the new (!) Harper Lee novel (!!) comes out in July (!!!). What is the matter with me? Why do I need to make the easy things so hard? Maybe I should just re-read The Paradox of Choice instead. If you’re interested, it’s on sale at Barnes & Noble for $11.

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