Decision stress!

Partly because of the elections in the Netherlands and the enormous selection at the K'fair Düsseldorf earlier this month, I started thinking about "choosing." Because what are the choices these days?

Twenty-seven parties are participating in the Dutch version of the “House of Commons” (de Tweede Kamer) elections, do you choose small or large parties, do you choose for the common good or for something personal, which themes do you consider most important, what role does the party leader play, what statements and information are being expressed, and is this a good translation of the party’s platform or program…

In my world of colour, there are thousands of manufacturers or suppliers of pigments, dyes, and masterbatches worldwide. Do you choose the large, well-known companies or do you prefer the smaller, lesser-known ones, are price/quality your only motivators or do other factors like communication, flexibility, and proximity play a significant role, do you choose different suppliers for your white, black, and colour raw materials or do you prefer to source as much as possible from a single supplier, do you want a supplier with extensive expertise or do you have the knowledge yourself and are you only looking for a company that can produce it well for you…

In the specialised field of engineering plastics analysis, the selection of analysis equipment suppliers is somewhat smaller, but there are still some important choices to be made. Which standards and values ​​are you expected to comply with and analyse, which chemical, mechanical, and flame retardancy analyses are required for which applications and customers, what safety studies and information are required to even be able to sell in the various regions each with their own standards and regulations (REACH, FDA, NMPA, MFDS, APEC, etc.), how do you verify whether equipment and standards comply with the regulations, do you need IATF 16949 or ISO 9001, and what about ISO 14001 and 17025, do you need ISO, ASTM, DIN, NEN, or other local standards, do you choose (for mechanical properties, familiar to me) suppliers like Zwick/Roell and Instron or do you select from a wide range of EU, US, and Asian suppliers, here too you can make choices based on price/quality or additional factors…

It sometimes seems like this world has become one big (online) marketplace! But can you also receive too much information?

All companies want you as a customer and think they can prove this by generating as many superlatives as possible, emphasising the positive aspects and not mentioning the negatives or drawbacks. How many manufacturers have I spoken to by now assurering me that their pigments and dyes are the best, that besides their vast experience in Polyolefins they do also possess knowledge of colouring Polyamides and Polyesters, that you simply can't do without their LASER additive, that for the best equipment and software you must go to excellent supplier A while supplier B is also good yet offers less service... etc. etc. etc.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to once again advocate for buying less (online) from all those cheaper-than-cheap webshops and companies. It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, because are we consuming more because of those cheap options, or did those cheap options come about because we've started consuming more? But the fact is that Amazon, Alibaba, Zalando, SHEIN, VidaXL, and a few others are so big for a reason.
We could certainly do with being more critical of ourselves and less focused on "I want it, and I want it now." Buying all those cheap mass-produced goods is just only very much benefitting those companies and countries whose geopolitical positions are rather questionable, causing regional and local businesses and shops to disappear, making us even more dependent. And you have to wonder if all that cheapness over here isn't coming at the expense of human rights and working conditions (or the lack thereof) elsewhere in the world. And I know I come from a time and family where every Dutch guilder was counted (yes, I'm that old) and a "no" was more often uttered for the desired purchase than a "yes," but we could all do with considering more often whether we really need "something" or whether we just want to "join in" with others and, when we have a smaller budget, just buy the cheap stuff. I sometimes feel like the Netherlands is starting to fill up with storage space... to build more houses, besides using a small portion of farmland for this purpose (one of the many discussions in Netherlands), you could also consider decreasing the number of warehouses (or, while we're on the subject: data centers).

There's nothing wrong with doing fun things, but we're bombarded with so many stimuli and temptations these days (and it's not just young people who succumb to them) that it leads to overconsumption and... decision stress! Surely that can't be the intention?

If I may say so, it all starts with making again a few choices (sorry): halve your social media use, go back to physical stores and shop less online, buy less and when you do buy, better and sometimes more local quality (then the gifts will just be a bit smaller or more creative), make a list of what is really important to you and act on it.

When electing a political party, I'd suggest limiting yourself to three issues that are important to you, but also considering what might be important to someone you don’t know for example from the Groningen (province Northern Netherlands) earthquake zone, from someone living in poorly insulated homes in large cities, from someone living nearby the lily fields in Drenthe (province northeastern Netherlands), or people living in the PFAS-polluted areas near Dordrecht and IJmuiden (both cities in the western halve of Netherlands). Try to look beyond the campaign rhetoric and beyond your own community (especially if it's actually quite good).

And for my world of colour, the same actually applies, limit your choice and try to look beyond the sales talk: make a checklist of essential conditions to assess and tick off each supplier, with a smaller range of suppliers you subsequently talk to face-to-face and with a very select range of materials and machinery you first do a trial run, after which you make a choice for one (if it concerns equipment and machinery) or two (if it concerns raw materials) suppliers.

Decision stress and overload due to an excess of (not always objective) information can lead to poorer processing of new information, loss of quality, loss of overview and even making wrong choices.

In the category of "Grandma Knows Best": limit your choices and focus, "think before you leap," do what gives you tranquillity and energy, and above all, focus more on your fellow human beings (and animals and plants) than on accumulating things.

Or as Loesje* would say:

                                     “IT SEEMS SIMPLE

                                                                   AND IT IS.”

* Loesje is an international, creative and activist organisation that has been distributing posters with short, witty and positive texts since 1983.