A Tale of Two Toasters

Some Thoughts on New Year's Resolutions, Part 2

Note: This is the second of two posts on New Year’s resolutions. You can read the first post, “This Year, Choose Abundance,” here.

We have a terrible toaster. We never know whether our bread will be heated to a mere soggy lukewarmth, or whether it will pop up burned (or not pop up at all). I suspect that the dial that purports to allow us to choose the level of toastiness was designed by those pranksters who make the nonoperational “door close” buttons in elevators, because our toaster’s dial has no effect on anything whatsoever. And yet I have hung on to that toaster for almost ten years now. Why? I like to reframe the toaster’s flaws as a spiritual practice: Our toaster is a reminder that the universe is random and chaotic, and that we are all subject to the whims of forces beyond our ken.

A typical example of our toaster’s whims. I had set the dial at 4 out of 10, and this half-burned toast is what popped up. What would 10 out of 10 be? Setting the kitchen on fire?

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Maximizers and Satisficers

But actually, the real reason that this wretched toaster still taunts us every morning is that I am a satisficer, not a maximizer. Whereas maximizers relentlessly pursue the very, very best and will strive for perfection in every aspect of life, satisficers, when presented with a choice or situation, will say to themselves, “Eh, good enough,” and go on their merry way. If I ever do replace our toaster, I will simply go to the grocery store, grab whatever toaster is sitting on the shelf, think to myself, “This will probably be ok,” and then cheerfully live with that toaster and all its inadequacies for another decade or so.¹

Maximizers, by contrast, are convinced that there is a Platonic ideal of toaster out there, and they are just the ones to track it down. They conduct extensive research. They read Consumer Reports and visit multiple stores to interrogate salespeople and to compare prices and features. They ruminate and agonize. What if there is a superior toaster out there that they haven’t found yet? Better to search a bit longer just in case. Maximizers might subscribe to the Wirecutter column in the New York Times to take advantage of their AI-assisted research to find the very, very best toaster. (Amusingly, the last line of the Wirecutter article on toasters is, “Not quite ready to decide? Save this article for later.” Seriously? It’s a toaster, not a house! Just pick one already!)

As readers have probably guessed, I have little patience for this approach. One commenter, in the screenshot below, agrees with me:

Isn’t this a lovely found poem?

I once attended a maximizer-style brunch. To assemble the meal, we first went to one store that sold the best bagels. We waited in a long line, bought the bagels, and walked a few blocks to another store that sold the best lox. We waited in a long line, bought the lox, and walked a few blocks to another store that sold the best salads. We waited in a long line, bought the salads, and finally headed over to brunch. All three stores sold bagels, lox, and salads, so it would have been possible to purchase everything at one place and avoid all that walking and waiting. But then our brunch wouldn’t have been the very, very best. (And, to be fair, it was indeed an excellent brunch.)

Or check out the photo below, from a family trip to Paris several years ago. The felafel shop on the left, L’As du Fallafel, is famous for serving the very, very best felafel in Paris. The place is featured in guidebooks and everything. But look at the line! We, by contrast, walked straight up to the shop on the right, Authentique Falafel,² and obtained delicious felafel with no wait whatsoever. It is possible that the felafel at L’As du Fallafel was incrementally better than ours, but our lunch was highly satisfactory and also got us on our way sooner, so that we had more time to explore Paris. The maximizers in the felafel line could have taken a lesson from the Happy Wanderer’s First Law of Travel: You will pay in money, quality, or time, but no matter what you will pay.

Contemporary America is a maximalist culture. Articles on parenting urge us to “Boost Your Baby’s Brain Power!”³ We feel pity for and are vaguely disappointed in people who “settle,” whether it is for a less-than-stellar academic record, a non-elite college (or no college), a job that pays the bills but doesn’t lead to fame and fortune, Mr. (or Ms.) Good Enough, or just a pleasant, ordinary life. Nowhere is maximalist pressure more acute than in discussions about our health. Health authorities and journalists admonish us to eat cleaner and exercise harder, but they fail to acknowledge the importance of pleasure to our lives, nor do they recognize that health extremism can have negative consequences of its own, for example injuries from over-training, or eating disorders like orthorexia.

A recent article in the New York Times epitomizes this health-maximalist attitude. It argues that we should be running instead of walking, because running is “better for our lasting health.” And yet, as the Freakonomics podcast notes, the best exercise is the one we will actually do. How many of us make a New Year’s resolution to take up running, try it for a week or so, and when our knees give out, give up? Isn’t it better to be satisfied with an exercise that, while not the very, very best, will be one we can enjoy for our whole lives?

This is a screenshot of one of the top-rated comments to the article.

This Year, Try Less Perfection and More Joy

All of this is not to trash maximizers, who are, after all, necessary to human flourishing. As my husband likes to point out, if there were no maximizers, we would still be hunkering down in caves and dying of sepsis. And think of how impoverished life would be without the awe-inspiring artistic and athletic achievements that maximizers bring us. (No doubt maximizers have superior toasters too.) Maximizers seem to enjoy the pursuit of the best deal, tastiest dish, most compelling performance, most monumental discovery, heartiest laughter, profoundest story, and the like—and they apparently don’t mind the extra effort either.

However, it can be helpful for our own happiness to temper our maximizing tendencies, and to allow ourselves to accept “good enough” on occasion. As this article notes, satisficers tend to have an easier time with decisions than maximizers do, because

A satisficer is less likely to experience regret, even if a better option presents itself after a decision has already been made. . . . Once maximizers have made a choice, they are likely to second guess themselves and wonder whether they could have made a better choice.

The difficulties that extreme maximizers face go well beyond anxiety about decisions; needing to be the very, very best can keep us from experiencing lovely little moments of happiness and connection.⁴ I once knew a guy who was a maximizer and brilliant at almost everything—science, math, languages, writing, sports. The sole exception was that he couldn’t sing, and so he didn’t, ever. No humming a little tune under his breath. No Christmas carols. No “Sweet Caroline” at ballgames—not even “ba ba baaa.”

I found this cartoon here.

Saddest of all, no “Happy Birthday.” At parties, when the cake came out and everyone started singing lustily and tunelessly, he would stand there, silent and aloof. In an effort to excel at everything he did, he denied himself the ordinary pleasure of celebrating together with friends.

It can be wonderfully freeing to take a satisficer’s approach to new enterprises—to try something just because, and without attempting to be the very, very best at it. Many years ago, my mother-in-law, sister-in-law Robin, and I went on a yoga retreat. The retreat offered a dance class, which I, a galumphing klutz, shied away from. Robin took the class and emerged exhilarated and euphoric. She encouraged me to give it a try. Hesitantly, and fearing that people would make fun of me, I joined in. Of course no one made fun of me, and I experienced the joy of dancing like no one was watching. (Hint: The vast majority of the time, no one is watching.) In a comment last week, Lisa expands on this point:

I’ve found willingness to try new things with no regard for looking or being “bad” to be the most underrated personality trait. It’s also the trait that truly changed my life. Sometimes I hear people say they can’t take a dance class because they might look bad, and I mention to people that I started dancing in adulthood and was a terrible, clumsy, untalented dancer for four years before I was a great dancer, and people find that a little encouraging and surprising—especially when I tell them that for those four years no one ever made fun of me or cared that I was terrible, clumsy and untalented.

In the video below, 18,000 amateur singers from across Australia sing “Africa.” They aren’t the very, very best singers, but it doesn’t matter. They make beautiful music together:

Everyone is so happy! We can experience that joy too, if we make a New Year’s resolution to try something for our own pleasure, without worrying about maximizing or achieving. Maybe it’s dancing, or singing, or playing in the Really Terrible Orchestra, or pickleball, or pick-up basketball, or painting, or cooking, or writing, or a trivia team. Whatever the hobby we choose, if we try it in a carefree spirit of curiosity and adventure, it will brighten and enrich our lives.

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How about you, readers? Are you a maximizer or a satisficer? What are you doing to add more joy to your life? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

The Tidbit

That New York Times article forgets that we all run—or walk—at our own pace. Some of us are ostriches who lope effortlessly across the steppes, while others are penguins who waddle along behind. And yet penguins, when swimming in their proper element, are capable of tremendous feats of speed and agility. We, too, need to find our own element where we will thrive. Some of us might run because it is the very, very best exercise, but most of us will prefer an easier, more companionable pace.

In the informative, peaceful, and mesmerizing video below (h/t my friend Kathleen), birds parade across the screen, each at a speed that is appropriate and comfortable for it. Watch for a Usain Bolt cameo!

1. There is a line of appliances in Switzerland, called the OK brand, that accords well with this attitude. The brand is charmingly humble about the appliances’ middling virtues. We have an OK brand tea kettle that is not perfect, but, as the name indicates, it’s ok. It is slower than other kettles, but at least it’s also quieter. My husband jokes that we could imagine a series of kettles that get progressively slower and quieter. In the limit, we would have a pitcher of water.

2. I am getting a kick out of how many different ways “felafel” is spelled in this paragraph.

3. The linked article is just one example of many I could cite. When my kids were little, I subscribed to Parents Magazine for almost five years, and every issue contained some version of this article.

Incidentally, the Onion is almost too on-the-nose in satirizing the belief that we parents must maximize everything about our children: “Your Kids: Are They Sexy Enough?”

4. I’m reminded of David Foster Wallace’s characterization of “professional athletes [as] our culture’s holy men: They give themselves over to a pursuit [and] endure great privation and pain to actualize themselves at it.” Wallace’s original article is no longer available online, but you can find it in the book String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis.