Try Closing Some Doors

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Did you know that closing doors is good for your sanity?

I struggle with that.

Even in writing this post, I have saved the word file in five stages, so that if the material I cut out in version one seems important later on, I can go to file A and retrieve it. The horror of losing a precious sentence in penning this thing.

My grieving over each decision–i.e. letting go of the options I didn’t pick–is precisely why I loathe grocery shopping and every other kind of shopping. Especially in America when you get to choose between eight kinds of apples: Washington local, organic, Pink Lady, Braeburn, Red Delicious, yada yada yada. I get overwhelmed. Very overwhelmed.

I was interested by John Tierney’s article in the New York Times, “The Advantage of Closing a Few Doors,” and what it had to teach me about grocery shopping, apples, and securing sanity.

Especially intriguing was his story of the Chinese general in the third century B.C., Xiang Yu, who conducted an experiment in decision-making by crushing his troops’ cooking pots and burning their ships. The logic? To motivate them and focus them on moving forward.


Recent studies in social science tell us that this general may have been on to something. According to Dan Ariely, professor of behavioral economics at MIT and author of “Predictably Irrational,” there is wisdom in closing a few doors, even if doing so feels counter-intuitive.

Following are a few excerpts from the New York Times article that you can read in entirety by clicking here:

Most people can’t make such a painful choice, not even the students at a bastion of rationality like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Dr. Ariely is a professor of behavioral economics. In a series of experiments, hundreds of students could not bear to let their options vanish, even though it was obviously a dumb strategy (and they weren’t even asked to burn anything).

“Closing a door on an option is experienced as a loss, and people are willing to pay a price to avoid the emotion of loss,” Dr. Ariely says. In the experiment, the price was easy to measure in lost cash. In life, the costs are less obvious — wasted time, missed opportunities. If you are afraid to drop any project at the office, you pay for it at home.

“We may work more hours at our jobs,” Dr. Ariely writes in his book, “without realizing that the childhood of our sons and daughters is slipping away. Sometimes these doors close too slowly for us to see them vanishing.”

Dr. Ariely, one of the most prolific authors in his field, does not pretend that he is above this problem himself. When he was trying to decide between job offers from M.I.T. and Stanford, he recalls, within a week or two it was clear that he and his family would be more or less equally happy in either place. But he dragged out the process for months because he became so obsessed with weighing the options.
So what can be done? One answer, Dr. Ariely said, is to develop more social checks on overbooking. He points to marriage as an example: “In marriage, we create a situation where we promise ourselves not to keep options open. We close doors and announce to others we’ve closed doors.”

Or we can just try to do it on our own. Since conducting the door experiments, Dr. Ariely says, he has made a conscious effort to cancel projects and give away his ideas to colleagues. He urges the rest of us to resign from committees, prune holiday card lists, rethink hobbies and remember the lessons of door closers like Xiang Yu.

If the general’s tactics seem too crude, Dr. Ariely recommends another role model, Rhett Butler, for his supreme moment of unpredictable rationality at the end of his marriage. Scarlett, like the rest of us, can’t bear the pain of giving up an option, but Rhett recognizes the marriage’s futility and closes the door with astonishing elan. Frankly, he doesn’t give a damn.

Originally published on Beyond Blue at Beliefnet.com

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Therese Borchard
I am a writer and chaplain trying to live a simple life in Annapolis, Maryland.

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10 Responses
  1. Lizzie

    How interesting Theresa. I have difficult too. I suppose that is what anxiety is : the inability to close doors- do I do this or that. Hanging on to friendships that don’t do us any good ,clothes that we no longer wear ect ect
    I am terrible at letting go of past decisions and the past. I can ruminate on them for hours days,months, years. My mind wont let go.
    I better close a few doors and lock them and throw away the key!!
    LIzzie

  2. John Diehl

    Pursuing needless perfection in daily tasks and procrastinating are examples of keeping my options open. Oh, how I agonize over the silliest things, hoping to get them just right, and even more so for important decisions. The time and effort wasted are tragic and embarrassing, and rarely justified by the outcome. Yet, I don’t want to be careless or cavalier, especially in matters affecting others. To prioritize, find a balance, step out and risk without considering every angle, is such a challenge.

  3. Steve H

    Awesome- another simple (yet often SO difficult!) lesson that can thoroughly change our lives for the better. Thank you, Therese.

  4. Tammy Fowler

    I definitely have problems closing doors. I even have trouble deleting emails. It seems silly but it wastes a lot of my productive time (which is only a small portion of the day).

  5. Doing What I Can

    Oh, Therese, I sooooo much related to this post. I’ve NEVER even considered the idea of closing ANY doors. This post is really so helpful (actually, all of your posts have been so helpful to me, thank you). I’m going to TRY to put it into action. We’ll see how that goes, LOL.

    Blessings to all!!!

  6. Theresa J. Pinkston

    Shutting doors is an extremely difficult decision to make. I have a lot of trouble doing that and often can’t decide which door or doors to close. Sometimes, I think I would be better off with only one choice and maybe that’s exactly what I need to do — eliminate all but one choice. Even Jesus tells us to drop our “nets” (concerns, projects, work, etc.) and our problems (sins) before taking up our “cross” and following him (one goal!).

  7. I agree! I think the same stands for people. It is ok to close the door on a relationship if it is having a very negative impact on your life. If you don’t it may stop you from experiencing all the positive ones. As well as the positivity in life in general! Of course this should be a last resort but sometimes it’s needed. Great blog! Really makes you think. Thank you!

  8. Hi Therese,

    My name is Anuj Agarwal. I’m Founder of Feedspot.

    I would like to personally congratulate you as your blog Therese Borchard has been selected by our panelist as one of the Top 60 Mental Health Blogs on the web.

    http://blog.feedspot.com/mental_health_blogs/

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  9. Terri P

    I am sure it was something you wrote,it’s about death thoughts, I was scared when I started to read it, so I didn’t finish reading the article, could you please send it to me. I was shocked because I never thought about it out loud, and I thought I was the only one, imagine how shocked I was at that moment.