This idea that you can do anything you want in life, but not everything you want in life keeps coming back to me everywhere I look.

Be it business ideas to pursue, books to read, people to connect with or even the food we want to eat. And its rooted in the fundamental problem of infinite choice that we must deal with every moment of every day.

Whatever you want to do - you're given an infinite number of options to choose from, and you want to try out everything, you can even give a bunch of choices a shot, but eventually, if you really want to enjoy the benefits you must choose 1 thing and go all in.

You must commit!

And that's where you get stuck - you get caught up in analysis paralysis, you can't make up your mind, you're afraid of making the wrong choice, of missing out on the perfect choice, so you don't make a choice at all.

If this seems too abstract, lets look at a simple instantiation of this this idea - Netflix

How do you decide what to watch on Netflix?

You fire up the app and scroll for hours and hours trying to pick the right show or movie to watch. You can't make up your mind if you want to watch something light and funny, or thrilling and intense, or somewhere in between.

You're presented with infinite options, this very fact, that you have infinite options leaves you in paralysis. Because you know once you pick a show or movie, it will be a multi hour commitment. Once you've made a choice, you can't go back from it. Or if the show turns out to be bad, you will regret wasting even a minute on it.

So what happens?

You give up!

You quit the choice and watch reruns of your favourite show which you've already watched hundreds of times.

You can watch ANY show you want, but not EVERY show you want.

If you want to enjoy any 1 show, you must say NO to a hundred other shows, you must take a leap of faith and commit to one.

If this seems like a silly example, think about how you choose who to marry?

Replace every instance of TV show to life partner, and shit gets real.

And then you see why people are marrying late these days, if at all. And why they're having kids late, if it all.

And this is true for every major decision in their lives - marriage, kids, career, anything that requires any serious commitment.

The abundance of choice leaves them paralysed, unable to commit, unable to say no, endlessly dissatisfied with their current state. Yet, stuck there forever!

Just because they can't accept 1 simple fact - you can have anything you want in life, not everything you want in life!