Aziz Ansari’s book on dating astonishingly touched on something relevant to job hunting. Ansari quotes Barry Schwartz and Sheena Iyengar (both authors, psychologists and professors), who describe what they call a “paradox of choice.”
“Maximizers” are people who weigh every option; they often get “better” jobs but are less satisfied with them, according to Schwartz and his colleague Andrew Ward. Satisficers, conversely, make decisions more quickly, but become quite content with their “lesser” jobs. The current term for a maximizer, to me, is FOMO (the fear of missing out).
When you’re looking for a job, be a satisficer. Don’t create a fantasy job that meets every one of your desires perfectly. Find a job that seems to meet your top two to three things, and go from there.
