I spent the better part of an afternoon trying to choose a new jacket. I read reviews. I compared fabrics. I opened twelve tabs and sorted them by rating and then re-sorted them by price and then added three different ones to three different carts without buying any of them. I closed the laptop and felt genuinely tired. Not tired from doing something - tired from almost doing something, repeatedly, without ever actually doing it.

This happens with everything. Restaurants, mattresses, apps, decisions that don't matter. The more options I have, the less I can move. I've confused research with action for so long that I'm not sure I know how to just pick something and be wrong about it anymore. Being wrong used to be fine. Now there's always a better version I didn't choose, documented somewhere in the reviews. Do you recognize this? The hours that disappear into comparison? When did choosing become so expensive?