“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” – Soren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety (1844)
Kierkegaard says anxiety arises precisely because we are free. When you stand at the edge of a cliff, you feel anxious, not just because you might fall, but because you could jump. The dizziness comes from confronting your own freedom, the vertigo of realising that nothing prevents you from choosing.
I keep returning to this when I feel overwhelmed by decisions: career, relationships, all the day to day choices.
How does this connect to the paradox of choice? Barry Schwartz’s work on how more options lead to more anxiety and less satisfaction. Kierkegaard might say: yes, obviously.