How choice can ruin things

I never really thought about what my credit card looks like. It's a piece of plastic you hand someone for a split second, or even, these days, you take it out and slide it through a machine. No one really admires it. Back in the day, you got the card design the card company wanted you to have. Heck, my amazon card is the default design. But Discover gave me a choice. And I really like the choice I made, then they discontinued it. My poor card, all the letters rubbed off, so it no longer says discovered. The mag strip is starting to fail and even some of the raised lettering is getting chipped, but because I once had a choice and I really liked my choice and because I can still choose, but none of the other designs even come close to making me happy, I've been resisting replacing the card.

This is not a tale of woe about my card. Really, I don't care about how the card looks in the end, but it is an interesting bit of psychology. Choice is effort. Many times that effort is rewarded, but sometimes it's more effort than reward. I wonder if this is why apple products are so popular. Someone else did the choosing and then charge you for the effort.

In most cases I like choice, but I think people have to be careful to watch their own psychology to help separate reality form perception.

And no, I still haven't made a choice of what to replace it with.