It’s the era of endless options. No wonder we are tired.

That fissure widened across three decades. The 1991 liberalisation opened India’s markets, bringing foreign broadcasters and brands to living rooms, and by the mid-90s, cable TV had brought small-screen entertainment to most homes. In the 2000s, early e‑commerce and cable broadband put catalogues behind glass. In the 2010s, cheap smartphones and low‑cost data, especially after 2016, put stores, entertainment, and services directly in our palms. In the 2020s, algorithmic feeds (Reels, Shorts) learned to predict what we might want before we can articulate it. The arc is simple: liberalisation brought more shelves, digitalisation made them searchable, and social media platforms made them endless and personal.

Abundance in the algorithm age

The same thing happens in meals, wardrobes, relationships, and careers. Hunger was once a plate and a decision. Now, the Zomato-Swiggy scroll turns appetite into an interface: app, outlet, dish, add‑ons, coupons, and surge fees. Twenty minutes later, the stomach waits while the thumb keeps moving.

My grandmother wore the same cotton saree; my mother chose from a handful at the local shop; I toggle between three identical white shirts across two tabs, unable to click “Buy.” The friction has shifted from access to attention.

Pop culture mirrors the arc. The 90s rush of new channels and Indian Idol-style audience votes turned viewers into choosers. The 2010s brought autoplay and infinite queues; then came reels without endpoints. Dating moved from family‑arranged certainties to app‑era ambiguities, filters, and bios promising individuality but delivering sameness.

As children, we auditioned for excellence everywhere, dance, debate, dramatics, and were made into a jack of all trades. As young adults today, we can do almost anything, yet can’t seem to do the one thing we actually want. Hustle culture says “do it all”, while family advice says “choose safe.” So we keep every tab open: UPSC thread, start‑up idea, grad school form, internal transfer, and “let’s see.” The ambition list increasingly looks like a perpetually unsaved draft of a life.

The mental load

The more choices there are, the thinner the appetite for choosing becomes. The hum of possibility can start to sound like static.

Psychology has words for this. American psychologist Barry Schwartz calls it “the paradox of choice”: more options can heighten expectations, amplify regret, and lower satisfaction. A classic experiment by social psychologist Sheena Iyengar showed that too many jam jars on a table reduced actual purchases, but a smaller set led to more decisions.

Importantly, abundance isn’t just a consumer story; it is also a mental‑health story. Studies on decision fatigue suggest that repeated choices deplete mental energy, leading to either impulsive picks or defaulting to “do nothing.” Recent work on mental fatigue also links it to risk‑aversion and poorer feedback processing, less bandwidth to weigh trade‑offs, and more temptation to scroll past the choice altogether. Choosing also means confronting the necessity to forgo the alternatives, triggering FOMO (fear of missing out) for some and hindering the decision-making process.

None of this means choice is bad; it means unbounded choice, without anchors, has a cognitive cost.

Art of choosing

So what helps? Iyengar argues that “meaningful choice” requires fewer, better‑differentiated options and clear reasons. In plain terms: shrink the field so attention can deepen. Three small practices translate this into daily life:

The 3×3 rule. Choosing your meal? Restrict yourself to three outlets, and decide in three minutes. If you can’t reach a decision, it’s often best to default to the nearest healthy option and move on.

Go from low-choice to high-choice. Consider you are buying a car. Iyengar says a study found that participants who were asked to make bigger choices, with fewer options, like between two engines and three gear sets, were more likely to stay enthusiastic during customisation choices like colours and interiors. Whereas those who were presented with high-choice decisions first lost interest mid-way, sticking to default options.

Categorise. Divide your options into meaningful categories, and pick what serves your interest best.

These are not productivity hacks, but a way to bring intention to attention. The point isn’t to shrink life; it is to let any one choice acquire roots.

The family ledger still matters. My grandmother’s life recorded the price of scarcity; ours records the price of choosing. Between them lies a kinder definition of freedom: not infinite possibility, but the ability to give attention without guilt. It’s the freedom to have ‘enough’ in a sea of choices, where a meal is finished before the scroll starts, a conversation is had without checking that next notification, and a decision feels owned, not algorithmically nudged.

“Your generation has too many tabs open in your brains at once,” a senior told me, half‑joking, fully right. Maybe closing tabs can be a ritual like oiling hair — slow, sweet-scented, unhurried, and unperformed — which makes time feel lived, not merely saved.

Vagmi and Samiksha are freelance writers