Spicy Tomato Soup. Arugula, Orange, and Onion Salad. Toasted Mozzarella and Olive on Ciabatta.

Soup, Salad, or Half a Sandwich? Why Must I Choose? (Part Deux)

I RECENTLY READ THAT the average person makes 35,000 decisions a day, which felt devastating to me. Making two would be a very good day. I’m pretty sure I’ve only made about three dozen in my entire life. Stuff just keeps happening and I go along with it. (Except when it comes to lunch.)

Because decisions are stressful! And while I am aware that making tough choices often leads to forward motion, I’ve also noticed that it can escalate into erratic rocket speed that sends you plummeting over a cliff like a cartoon coyote with a parcel of dynamite strapped to your back. So I’ll just sit here in the dark.

My personal neuroses aside, that enormous number seemed a little off to me. So I scrounged around for a source. The 35,000 figure turns out to come less from a valid study conducted in accordance with the core steps of the scientific method and more from the drunk game of telephone known as scientific research journalism. Somebody says something at Cornell, it gets quoted in the Harvard Business Review, and suddenly it’s a stunning “fact” that gets thrown around for years for people like me to fret over. If only I’d made 27,000 more decisions a day—I might be a Nobel Prize-winning physicist or a tennis star or a world leader right now.