I am NOT Pro Choice (in some areas)

When Peggy and I lived in Germany one of the things we were impressed with was the grocery stores. They weren’t large, the selection was limited but the quality of the goods was excellent. Shopping was a pleasure.

When we came back to the USA after a couple years in the early 90's we had to be reacclimatized to the cereal isle.

There were too many things to choose from. Too many choices. Too many options.

It's like the Medicare thing Pres Bush came up with. No one can figure it out because there are too many choices.

I don't love a one size fits all program, I do want some choice but too much is too much.

When I bought my last cell phone, I went in and said, "I want a simple phone that I can make and receive calls on".

They kept trying to sell me on phones that danced, sang, had 500 ring tones, did games, took pictures and scratched my back. I just wanted a phone that made and received phone calls. They thought I had arrived from mars.

I got the simplest phone they had, it still works, it still makes and receives phone calls. I still don't want my picture taken.

Same when I bought the digital camera I did. I wanted to take pictures and load them onto my computer. Nope. It had to do movies, features and who knows what. I am confident that it does more than I am doing with it. I don't care. I just want to take pictures.

Same with software. Some years ago I told a software engineer friend of mine that I was convinced that a simple software package that allowed me to write letters and didn't try to help me with that stupid assistant I constantly try to assassinate helping me.

I mostly use word pad now, then I load it into word and let the spelling correction take place. I just hate all the features word has. This is from an op ed piece I read in the Tribune today:

It's counterintuitive, but marketing researchers have discovered what I (and many simple-minded people) have known for years: Too many choices can suppress sales.

In the book "Blink," Malcolm Gladwell describes a very simple study in which shoppers at a grocery store were offered the chance to buy one of six specialty jams. Thirty percent bought a jar. When the choices were increased to 24 varieties of jam, only 3 percent bought.

So all you folks who dreamt up all these options, Cell Phone Plans and 100 other complicated things, simple is better. It really is.

Somehow I think this applies to all of life.