With all the recent news about violence, viruses, and victimization, it’s sometimes hard to believe that people can be unhappy in places where there is relative calm and plenty. Psychiatrist Zbigniew Lipowski once wrote: “I maintain that it is specifically the overabundance of attractive alternatives, aided and abetted by an affluent and increasingly complex society, that leads to conflict, frustration, unrelieved appetitive tension, more approach tendencies and more conflict — a veritable vicious cycle.” In other words, if you have too many choices, it can stress you out. And that can be true whether those choices are heart-wrenching or trivial. From Maria Konnikova in The New Yorker: When it’s bad to have too many choices. (At least you have someone to help you choose the news to read.)

+ We’re often reminded that positive experiences make us happier than material goods. But what if those material goods are experiential in nature? (Yup, more choices.)