Testimonials | dana gilad (30)

internal discomfort;
Obsessive Thoughts;
Distraction;
Paralyzation

During second semester of this year, our school held a workshop to help guide and assist us on our thesis projects. My friend and I were planning to meet up and drive there together, although we both had our doubts of how important or beneficial this workshop would be, which caused us to second-guess going at all. But, although all the questioning, we still ended up deciding to go in the hopes that it would be good for us. We started driving up the hour-long ride through traffic, but, to be honest, during the whole way we were still questioning if to go at all, because those second-guessing thoughts hadn’t really left our heads. In the meantime we had realized that all this questioning of ours was already going to make us late and miss at least half of the workshop and we only had a few minutes left to decide what to do–continue to school or to turn back home– before passing by the last exist to U-turn off of the highway. Right then a car surprised us by bumping into the back of our car. We were a bit shook from this little accident, probably because it was partially caused by us being so distracted by our indecision. I remember that while standing in traffic I turned to look at my friend and she looked back at me, laughing at how we shouldn't be stuck together in the same place because neither of us likes to decide. But thankfully we were fine; we pulled off to the side of the road and handled the insurance stuff, but afterwards when that was all behind us we continued to sit on the side of the road for about another 15 minutes, still stuck on what to do and just looking at one another hoping the other will just make the decision for the both of us already. After all of that, it seemed to us like fate had “chosen” for us not to go. But we really feared the potential regret that we’d be missing out on something by not going at all, although it was very clear that we for sure would be missing out on something since we were really late as it was. I asked my friend to decide, based on what she thinks will “bug her mind” the most, what would she regret more: going to the workshop and overall “wasting time,” or would she regret turning back home and constantly worrying about “what could have been?” Her answer was that she regretted the “FOBO” (fear of better options) and having to live with the regret of missing out on something... so that’s what ended up being our deciding factor and we continued onto school, although we both knew we didn’t really want to go anymore.

Dana Gilad (30)

🡐
01 / 12

Designed & built by: Zohar Pomerantz |  Special thanks to: Assaf Dov Cohen and Polar Team

The belief that more choice, and so more freedom, is a good thing is actually incorrect —

Choice is a real struggle when there's so much of it. The more options to choose from simply leaves us feeling overwhelmed, while having direct consequences on our mental wellbeing. This can lead to an increase in anxiety and depression, in decreased satisfaction, and regret over the choices we have already made. This issue is most commonly known as choice overload or “The Burden of Choice.”

The Project:

This project was born from personal experience, of wanting to learn more about my own decision anxiety and the reasons for why I suffer from it. Off the start, while researching the subject, I began to realize just how many other people are influenced by this same anxiety, yet feel alone in it, unaware of the existence of 'choice overload.' More so than that, while educating myself on the subject I began to feel disorientated - all the information available was scattered among different platforms, hidden in tiresome textual formats that would cause the average person to abandon the effort of learning altogether. “The Burden of Choice” was designed as a solution to these problems, creating a visual platform to expose users to the issue— providing a place to experience and learn more about it, while giving the issue the proper acknowledgment and recognition that it deserves.