The only thing I change with respect to the run is whether I start eastwardly up the block or westwardly up the block. In a sense, deciding whether I run the route "forwards" or "backwards."
What's interesting is that I don't really enjoy running. I like it, but I don't love it. What I actually enjoy is the routine of things. I enjoy knowing that when I go to be on Sunday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night, I have to wake up the next morning, at 7:00 AM, and go for a run. In short, it's not the activity I enjoy; it's the schedule.
So, as it relates to maximizing vs. satisficing, I don't mind having many choices or very few so long as I know that I have scheduled some time to make a selection. For example, I go food shopping every 2nd Saturday of the month, I appropriate approximately two hours for shopping (I go to two, maybe three different stores). When I purchase salad dressing, I don't mind having a huge selection. I don't feel paralyzed by the vast array of salad dressings. And I don't experience buyer's remorse later on if I don't like it. Why is this?
Well, it's because I know I will go food shopping next month (on the 2nd Saturday) to select a new salad dressing.
See, if one follows a routine or a schedule, he/she...
The reason is that one knows he/she will have the opportunity to choose again. It may be the next month or in several years, but the day will come again for him/her to choose and -- this is really the key -- if he/she knows in advance when that day of selection will come again he/she does not feel the anxiety, paralysis, remorse, etc. he/she feels with having too much to choose from. Additionally, one never feels like he/she is "settling" or satisficing, really, for the same reason, i.e. there will be a known future date to correct a past error.
Is my routine a satisficing coping strategy for a life, which creates too many impossible choices? Is it my fishbowl so to speak? I don't know. I don't think so. Again, it is more a mechanism to take chaos out of the equation, to take a precious commodity (my time) and give a structured existence in the physical world, without making me feel less free or compromised in some way, which arguably would happen if one had few choices and no schedule in place.
Therefore, and from my perspective, the key to being happy is not about maximizing or minimizing one's choices, it's about knowing in advance when one will get to make that choice (routine).
