In advance of tomorrow’s TEDxAdelaide 2011 (see this post on last year’s event) I thought I’d share a couple of TED talks that create an interesting juxtaposition. I enjoyed both and think they each contain some truth – but at the same time the ideas within them are somewhat at odds with each other.
This first one, by Malcolm Gladwell, is about how the key to happiness is a shift away from universals into embracing a diversity of interests and needs.
Gladwell maintains that we often can’t articulate what we like or what we want, and so it never occurs to us to ask for it when directly questioned by (for instance) market research. There is a great anecdote about how chunky pasta sauce went from being nonexistent (because no-one had thought to make it) to being an overnight success on supermarket shelves across America.
One consequence of the ideas in Gladwell’s talk is the proliferation of choice. Which, according to this talk by Barry Schwartz, is the exact recipe for making us unhappy.
Schwartz laments the seemingly infinite variety of products on our shelves, something that Gladwell (implicitly) celebrated. Too many choices means we expect ever higher standards from the choices we make. Reality increasingly falls short of expectations. Worse, we blame ourselves more because somewhere, somehow, the chance to make the correct choice was ours – and we blew it.
I think there is enough middle ground to accommodate both positions, but I thought considering the two arguments together (which I only happened to do by accident today) offered useful food for thought.
Enjoy!