It’s been over a year now, since I decided to return to work full time, after a long stretch raising my daughters and pursuing other interests. Job offers have come and gone. So many options, and a sense that I can really do anything, as long as I set my heart to it. And I am still looking, for the perfect job, with just the right mix of greenness and Web hipness. It’s gotten to the point where I am feeling restless, and frustrated. Enters Barry Schwartz, a sociology professor at Swarthmore College, and the author of ‘The Paradox of Choice‘:
I can totally relate. More importantly, Barry Schwartz provides yet another argument for why we need to share our material affluence. It is good for us to deal with less, and the rest of the world needs our surplus.
La Marguerite 
Great video, Marguerite. You find so many interesting and helpful things that I’m wondering whether I should stop Googling and just check La Marguerite a couple times a day.
“just the right mix of greenness and Web hipness. ”
That would indeed be perfect for a Green Girl in the Valley (or at least, near to it).
And that’s a really great talk. I like the cartoons. 🙂
But I think you’re too good for any job. At least, I don’t know any startup which would be a match for you.
I suggest you look for a company where you could have a serious say about their future direction. If you have the financial means (able to live without direct income for a while), you could even consider starting something yourself. You’d have my backing for sure.
I’ve got a response to the video here. I call it, “the infantile paradox of choice”.
In short, the problem is not that we have a huge number of choices, but that we’re unable to distinguish between essentially meaningless choices like which of the 175 salad dressings to buy, and essentially meaningful choices like who to marry.
Consumerist society has offered us more meaningless choices, not more meaningful ones – the more meaningful choices have come from advances in democracy, human rights and education.
Er, here, I mean.
Thanks Kyle. I appreciate your perspective. As usual, very thought provoking . . . I responded on your blog.
See now, this is the kind of TED talk I find inspiring. Amy Tan talks about creativity. “There is uncertainty in everything, and that is good, because I will discover something new.”
A wide variety of choices can overwhelm us, but it also gives us uncertainty, and that is good. The most certain people have often turned out to be the most dangerous ones, and those unable to learn and progress. Uncertainty, doubt, fear, all these are what make us human and adult.
Kyle, there is a difference between showing healthy self-doubt and the ability to consider others’ points of view, and suffering from the common delusion in our culture that we can do and have anything we want. The latter is linked to Barry Schwarz’s point.
> Jeff : do like me, subscribe to the the blog’s RSS feed. So you’re kept posted on the news. (ooops, my English is pretty bad) Then, news will come to you, and not the other way around.
> Marguerite : glad to read you have so many options. Lucky you ! But, heck one can understand : you’re obviously gifted !
And California must have many more opportunities on green issues than whole France…
This may sound odd, but I don’t know what an RSS feed is, or how to subscribe. (I suppose I could click the “Comments RSS” icon and see what happens, hoping not to be ejected from my chair.) And, I don’t know how to put a little picture-thing in my posts, like the planet or the flower or whatever. I’m a bit of a computer dummy. But, I’ll try to take things one step at a time, and hopefully, before the oceans rise by too many feet, I’ll know how to do all those things.
Oh wait: The EnergyTomorrow.org ad is on CNN, from the “people of” America’s oil and gas companies, you know, with the lady walking through clean high-tech looking stuff as she talks and basically asks us to trust her. And oh wait: Now the “clean coal” ad is on. (No joking.) OK. It’s over. Now it’s Obama giving us some necessary truth: “change is not going to be easy”. I’m glad someone is conveying some truth.
Oh well. It’s been a good week. Happy Friday!
> Jeff, I’ll be very quick as it is 3 am in France (d’oh ! ). To know what a RSS feeds is – and thus how to suscribe to a blog – there is a quick video from You Tube :
If you need any help on computers or related stuff, you can send me an e-mail or contact me via my homepage, I’ll gladly help as I really enjoyed reading your website. 😀
That’s what I like about this blog – besides Marguerite’s great posts – is the discussion we have… 😛
Thanks Edouard.
It’s been about a year since I retired, and while enjoying the freedom immensely (and not missing IT project deadlines), I am starting to feel restless myself. As if I should be doing something more, making more of a difference. Not just making changes in my own life but for the greater good as well. The video is thought-provoking. Thank you!
Yes, Verda. Same here. Feeling very restless. Wanting to take action. It is going to happen, not sure yet when. Best,
Marguerite