David Epstein, author of Range, writing about Herbert Simon’s notion of “satisficing” in the NYT as part of his promotional blog tour for his new book, Inside the Box:
Maximizers tend to be less satisfied with their decisions and their lives. They are typically less happy, more prone to regret and more likely to compare themselves endlessly with others. Satisficers don’t necessarily have low standards. Their standard is “good enough for me” rather than “the best out there,” and that makes it possible to feel satisfied with their choices, instead of haunted by the ones they didn’t make.
The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who first used the term “flow” to describe states of complete absorption in an activity, put it well. By making up one’s mind to invest in a choice, regardless of more attractive options that may come along later, “a great deal of energy gets freed up for living, instead of being spent on wondering about how to live.”
Delightful. Both feet fully in as opposed to one foot out. Assuredly hard to always employ in a world where social media functions as “an infinite comparison engine,” but delightful.