@jackm We don’t have piles of choices because we choose. I can’t run out and choose to make all the decisions I have to make throughout my life go away. He/she is merely suggesting that we might be equally satisfied with fewer choices as we are with many.
To answer the question, I don’t think it makes a lot of difference how many choices we have, since you’re going to disregard most of them anyway by eliminating them down to what appeals to you.
Often times I think it’s the illusion of choice that makes us have regret about the choices we didn’t make. I could have gone away to college at my dream school, but really, I couldn’t have. I love my girlfriend and wouldn’t leave her, and I got into a perfectly good college locally. That, you might say is a choice, but it wasn’t really a choice. I was admitted to both, but I also had to weigh in personal taste, my financial situation, and how far that puts me from the people I love—these external factors make decisions like these less of a choice. Temptation might rule the moment, but ultimately I’m going to choose to stay.
And to be entirely truthful, life is simpler—we make choices based on those choices which we acknowledge, that we are aware of. For all I know, I would absolutely love the lifestyle I would live in Topeka, Kansas, but I’ve never been to Topeka or Kansas, so I wouldn’t know. I chose between the places that I present to myself as opportunities, like the primate cities that stand out in my mind from the media, like New York, or the cities that I’ve been to and have grown fond of. There are plenty of other choices out there, and there are too many to regret the ones you made later when you discover a seemingly better one. If you accept that you’re never making a 100% informed and complete decision, you can sit much happier with what you’ve got, and sometimes even discover that these decisions aren’t the ones that matter the most, but the ones you make about who you are and who you decide to share your life with.