Indecision

It makes us uncomfortable when someone in authority changes their mind. We expect our leaders to be both knowledgeable and decisive. If your boss oscillates on key decisions, it’s difficult to work efficiently, unless of course you can somehow predict and plan for the next change (e.g., 2025 international trade policies). But decisions, both conscious and subconscious, are a big part of our daily life.

Before I retired from my STEM career a little over a year ago, many of my decisions felt preordained. Sure, I could choose whether to get up at 5:00 am and go to the gym and it was theoretically up to me if I should head to the office following my workout. Hitting the snooze button a few times and then calling in sick just never seriously occurred to me. The desire to stay fit and pay the bills always took priority. Since exiting the daily grind, each of my days is a clean slate, and the decisions seem to have multiplied.

Research by Professor Sheena Iyengar of Columbia University, an acknowledged expert, estimates that the average American makes approximately 70 conscious decisions every day (there is no scientific basis for the widely published number of 35,000 daily choices, although there are certainly some subconscious ones which are hard to count).  Nevertheless, each decision is different, and it is undeniable that we make a lot of them. And as Dumbledore advised "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities".

With our choices carrying this much weight, it is not surprising that Professor Iyengar and others have devoted so much effort to figuring out how we go about making them. Even our less consequential decisions, like which shampoo to buy, are scrutinized by marketing executives with hundreds of billions of dollars to spend.

In the summer of 2025, Talker Research conducted an online survey of over 2,000 people sampled from the general population to delve deeper into the actual decision-making process. Their data showed that 41% of Americans second-guess their important daily decisions, while 12% overthink all decisions big or small. A quarter of us are stressed out by even the simplest of choices. With this many decisions to grind on every day, it’s no wonder our stress level is rising.

Survey participants rated their top stressors as finances and physical health, which aligns with my reluctance to skip the office and the gym. If you hate grocery shopping (in an actual store) you are not alone - many of us experience “aisle anxiety” within 4 minutes of beginning the search for a specific product. Main concerns are listed as price and whether the product is healthy.

I thought of my own retirement from a 50+ year STEM career as inevitable, irreversible, and impactful, none of which made the decision any easier. My financial advisor and my doctor - both of whom rolled their eyes when I said I planned to live to 100 – endorsed the plan. The sheer number of decisions may have grown, but I enjoy choosing the next travel destination more than designing the next physics experiment. And when work is taken off the scale, the balance tilts toward life.

That’s just simple physics.

Author Profile - Paul W. Smith - leader, educator, technologist, writer - has a lifelong interest in the countless ways that technology changes the course of our journey through life.  In addition to being a regular contributor to NetworkDataPedia, he maintains the website Technology for the Journey and occasionally writes for Blogcritics.  Paul has over 50 years of experience in research and advanced development for companies ranging from small startups to industry leaders.  His other passion is teaching - he is a former Adjunct Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. Paul holds a doctorate in Applied Mechanics from the California Institute of Technology, as well as Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara.