Choice is the only tool we have that enables us to go from who we are today to who we want to be tomorrow.

About the only time our gut can truly outperform our reason is if we truly have developed a kind of informed intuition. So that means the chess master or someone who has really thought about it and given themselves feedback on a particular activity for at least 10,000 hours or more.

I mean we know that some choice makes you better off than no choice. Now do we get better off if we go from a lot of choice versus a few choices? And there I think the answer is much, much, much more complicated.

I mean we might even go to war as to whether we love Coke or Pepsi and our whole identity is wrapped up in that choice. You know, for the Russians they felt that these minor differences between these various sodas was just hyped up and irrelevant.

The typical Walmart today offers you 100,000 products.

The typical American reports making about 70 [choices] in a typical day.

A clear right answer and the opportunity to change the options? This is the chooser’s dream.