I don't believe that lots of choices are good. And I definitely believe that there are way too many choices out there right now. And I most strongly believe that many choices out there are just kind of irrelevant.
Choosing between paper and plastic is something I still don't get.
And I don't get the margarine-butter thing.
And 7-11 now offers twenty-nine variations on cream for coffee. The cream comes in little plastic solo-serving containers. Each flavor's a different color. And the package colors are only slightly more weird than the flavors.
Amaretto. Hazelnut. Cinnamon.
Fat-free, sugar-free, amaretto-hazelnut-cinnamon flavored with chocolate-mocha-raspberry swirl.
I use the white cream. It's just easier.
And I drink the regular coffee.
It's too difficult to think about the flavored coffees. I get nervous that I might accidentally use a flavored cream and end up with a drink that has nothing to do with coffee.
And I take whatever bag is closest to the clerk at the checkout. Although at 7-11, the choice is easier. At 7-11, it's not a choice between paper and plastic. At 7-11 it's your basic bag versus no-bag debate.
I never take the bag.
As far as butter and margarine, I just buy whatever's on sale. If it's yellow and it spreads, it's fine with me. I'm sure half the time I'm defaulting to the one that'll kill me faster.
Whatever.
Options are basically wasted on me. I'm just too lazy.
But preferences...now those I like.
There you are, shopping online for a new shower curtain, and a little box keeps popping up and telling you Mike's status.
Mike's idle.
Mike's no longer idle.
Mike's away.
Mike's back.
Mike's peeing. Or eating. Or otherwise taking a computer break.
Instant Messenger can advise you of your friends' and colleagues' moves. All of them. At all times.
And frankly, I just don't need to know.
Now, Mike - god bless him - is a truly great guy. Mike's a hard-working SOB with a big time heart of gold.
And Mike's online even more than me. If that's possible.
But I don't need to know everytime Mike stops typing for ten minutes. In fact, I don't want to know. I feel like some sort of perverted voyeur monitoring Mike's keyboard proximity.
So tonight I visited Preferences. I checked things and unchecked things. And I remembered to advise Microsoft to Apply my changes before I closed the Preference windows.
And now Mike can pee in peace. And I can just go on typing and searching and yahoogling without having to think about whether I should say hi and bye everytime he comes and goes.
All because of a little box that says DON'T NOTIFY ME WHEN PEOPLE COME AND GO.
While I was at it, I changed the size of my Outlook Notes. I made them all venti. And I changed them to pink while I was at it.
Then I set Updates to actually conduct an update every morning at 3:00. Because I was getting sick of the pop-up reminder that I should download Updates.
And I deleted the Outlook column telling me how big an email is. Cause who cares? You either gotta read the email or you don't. Size doesn't matter. Not with email.
By the time I was finished playing with my preferences, I felt like a new person.
Now what I would like to see are fewer options in life, but more preferences.
I'd like to click on the box that makes people smile and say hello when they pass you on the sidewalk.
I'd like to click on the box that makes everyone talk about a hundred decibels lower than they're actually talking.
And I'd really like to click the box that makes people drive slower.
I don't need to spend an hour in the morning thinking about the cream for my coffee.
But wouldn't life be great if everyone just smiled and shut up and slowed down?
Then we could work on getting everyone automatically updated everyday at 3am.