“He who is not satisfied with a little is satisfied with nothing,” said Epicurus, some 2,200 years ago.

The Epicureans, Stoics, and other ancient Greek philosophers differed in many ways, but one of the things they agreed on was the importance of simplicity. You’ll find no shortage of quotes from them on the need to be content with what we have, and with what happens in life to us.

Why is this? 

We humans suffer from an interesting conundrum: we are not easily content, yet we believe contentment is important. It would be interesting to see how Epicurus, Seneca, and their ilk would react if they were dropped into our time: how would they handle the mind-numbing amount of choices and data that we 21st plebians have to deal with every single day? 

How would they decide where to live, where to go to school, where to go on vacation, what retirement account to invest in, who to marry, what company to work for, what charity to donate to, and what brand of sustainable laundry detergent to buy?

Barry Schwartz, a psychology professor notes a problem that is “the paradox of our times”: We want more control over the details of our lives, we have more options and control than ever before, but we also want to simplify our lives. ¹

Is this even possible?

There are two basic approaches that humans use to find contentment in life, Schwartz argues. One is called “maximizing” and the other “satisficing.”

One approach tends to be more successful, the other less so. Both have their appeal. Most of us follow both, in different ways, even if we aren’t aware of it.

Maximizers Look For the Best, Satisficers Settle

Maximizers do what their name suggests: they look for maximum returns in everything. This includes the best quality cashmere sweater at the best value; the best EV brand, the best charter school for their kids, and the best life partner.

Even if the “best” version of a thing actually exists, it’s not easy to find; maximizers tend to spend hours reading product reviews online, weighing the cost/benefits of a certain job position, and questioning their life choices in general.

On the other hand:

“The alternative to maximizing is to be a satisficer. To satisfice is to settle for something that is good enough and not worry about the possibility that there might be something better. A satisficer has criteria and standards. She searches until she finds an item that meets those standards, and at that point, she stops.”  ²

Satisficers care about quality and outcome, too; they also believe that at some point, you reach diminishing returns and it makes sense to settle for the best thing you’ve found up to that point. It sounds logical, but do we always do this in life?

Perhaps one of the biggest differences is that maximizers wonder “What if there’s something better?”, while satisficers don’t necessarily expect better; there’s a certain threshold up to “good enough” and after that, it’s just different versions of “good enough.”

You might wonder if a maximizer is a perfectionist, but Schwartz argues there’s a crucial difference.

The Difference Between Maximizers and Perfectionists

No great violinist, NFL player, figure skater, painter, potter, or other expert in any field can reach their level without having impossibly high standards.

In fact, there is no attainable standard for dedicated experts – you beat your previous record, reach your goal, and then set a new one. It might sound exhausting, and to some it is; but to those who are dedicated to what they love, there’s a thrill in meeting the next challenge, in reaching the next horizon.

The big difference here is expectation.

“Perfectionists”– those who take their art or work seriously and always strive to improve – don’t expect to become perfect. (Their name is a bit misleading this way). Because they have higher standards than the vast majority around them, they seem to seek perfection, when in reality they are trying to be just 1% better than they were before.

Maximizers, according to Schwartz, have high expectations that they expect to fulfill.

For this reason, they are constantly second-guessing their choices and their use of time, wondering if and how they could have done better. It sounds exhausting, and it can be. In theory “satisficing” sounds like a better path to happiness than trying to have the best of everything. But is there anything wrong with wanting the best?

Where do we draw the line between satisficing and maximizing? Where does that line begin?

Is It Possible to Be Too Much of a Satisficer?

Schwartz makes a passionate case for satisficing. After all, the premise of his book The Paradox of Choice is how the overabundance of personal choices in our day and age has led to anxiety, stress, FOMO, frustration, and even depression. Hardly a recipe for happiness.

But a counterargument lurks here: isn’t it also bad to “settle”?

Just as maximization can lead to greed and unrealistic expectations, satisficing can lead to staying with a job, situation, or relationship that’s bad for us. Being a satisficer when it comes to the brand of cornflakes or dog food we buy is one thing; but what about the Big Choices in life? The ones with long-range, irreversible consequences?

Even Scharwatz hints at this when he says:

“I believe that we make the most of our freedoms by learning to make good choices about the things that matter, while at the same time unburdening ourselves from too much concern about the things that don’t matter.” [Ibid].

This leads to the question: what matters, and how can we know?

Like any serious, complex issue with real-life application, there is no sleek and sexy formula. There’s no algorithm to do the work and make the choice for us. Our flawed brains are all we have.

Therefore, wisdom is crucial to making any big choice in life. And wisdom is not cultivated overnight; we’d better have already been developing it from a young age, or we won’t be ready when the Big Life Choices come our way.

In the meantime, it doesn’t hurt to remember Epicurus’s words: If we are never able to be satisfied or content with having a little, at least for the meantime, how will we ever be satisfied when we have more?

Perhaps the ancient philosophers understood our time after all.

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1. Schwartz, B. (2009). The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less (Revised edition). HarperCollins.
2. Ibid.