My Word | A paralysing life of too much choice

The old one in the kitchen has four settings on the control: on/off, temperature, powerful, and home leave.

Pretty simple.

Now, the newer one in the lounge room comes with 24 buttons on the control and probably about 200 settings — don’t ask me, I have grandchildren, a novel to write, a masterpiece to paint and a verandah grapevine to manage, so I’ve never really counted them.

This control device looks like the flight deck of Apollo 11 without the stunning views of Earth.

The other evening we had to go out, so to keep the kitchen cool, I just pressed home/leave.

Brilliant, I thought.

That’s what I want.

This is the button to press when you want to leave home.

Aren’t air-con control designers brilliant?

Then I looked for a similar button on the lounge room air-con control.

Nope.

Just 24 buttons saying things like Mode, Fan, Vane, Long, Wide Vane, Timer, Weekly Timer, Edit/Send and Save.

Excuse me?

Did I ask it to fly me to the moon or design a quantum computer?

No, I just wanted to turn the damn thing down slightly for a couple of hours.

And I was in a hurry.

The Chief Gardener was waiting for me in the car, and she was already revving the engine.

Next would come the horn beep.

Then the double beep.

Then God knows what, I’ve never pushed it that far.

It could be the end of life as we know it, Jim.

I didn’t have time to fiddle about with 24 buttons to set the controls for the heart of the sun, so I just switched the damn thing off.

Better that, than endure a power bill that might mean re-mortgaging the house.

Look, there are men who would relish the challenge of 24 buttons on a hand-held device.

They’re mostly ham radio operators, Christmas light obsessives and train spotters.

I’m just a verandah vine controller who likes a glass of champagne at 4pm.

The point of all this is to ask — why do devices come with so many options?

Yes, I can see the marketing leverage of a device that offers 24 different settings, but do we really need limitless choices to live a happy life?

Then I checked out the dishwasher, the washing machine, the microwave, the robo floor cleaner, the rice cooker, the TV, my guitar sound effects pedal, our cars and our mobile phones.

There were so many options, if I lined them up, they could have slingshotted me around Mars and back.

Mr Musk needs to check his choice list of choices as a way of fuelling his visionary journey to the red planet.

But I’m sure he’s done that.

Wealth brings so many choices.

But to come back to Earth, why have we ended up in this choice-saturated condition that paralyses our time in this life?

I remember a time when capitalism was in its infancy and there was just television. That’s it.

No choice, just one screen that delivered news, entertainment and blithering nonsense from noon to midnight.

Then it was something called a test card on screen until the morning.

My parents had one phone on the wall, radio with one channel, and one car choice, Ford.

Their parents had no radio, no phone, just two newspapers, one bicycle option and several horse options.

Were their lives any worse?

Difficult to say, but they definitely spent more time in the garden, or out walking, or talking or reading books other than instruction books.

Back then, they had no choice.

Lucky things.