Words: Ben Shanks Kindlon 2021-01-25 17:43:27
Gigi Rüf, mind made up and locked into a BC Interior super-stack. Photo: Daniel Stewart With a wave to my seven and a natural kicker at 12:00, I think I can fit both into a line. But the angle is slightly off. The turn is lackluster and the airtime minimal. I should’ve kept my speed up and hit just the jump. It’s easy to try to fit too many features into one run. I relearn this nearly every time I ride powder. I grew up riding East Coast parks and employing a meandering, jib-and-jump-everything-in-sight approach to the mountain. I still love riding like that, but there’s something to be said for charging one memorable hit over a handful of smaller ones. It’s hard to remember that when I’m looking over an untouched field of features. The greater the number of options, the harder it becomes to choose only one. This is known as the “Paradox of Choice.” The concept originates from a 2000 study conducted by psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper. As part of their experiment, they sold jam at a booth in an upscale grocery store. Every few hours they’d alternate from having six or 24 jams available to customers. Having 24 on display attracted more people to their stand, but the number of jams they actually sold increased when there were only six on the table to choose from. They theorized that fewer choices led to a greater number of sales due to a simpler decision-making process for the customer. In 2004, another psychologist by the name of Barry Schwartz published The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less and applied these and similar findings to a broader range of topics. Barry argues that increased choice quickly goes from being liberating to debilitating, and often leads to greater consumer disappointment, especially in comparing what is to what could be given a plethora of alternatives. With greater exposure to products, lifestyles and just about everything you can think of than ever before, time and technology haven’t helped to ease the paradox of choice in our lives. Fortunately, despite overwhelming options, freedom of choice remains. There’s no such thing as the perfect amount of choice, and most would still appreciate having too much rather than too little. With that in mind, happiness in choosing comes simply from resolve in our decisions. Trying to fit too many features into one run has left me stuck in powder more often than I’d like to admit, although, all things considered, that’s not the worst place to be. On the lift back up, I decide to check out the same spot once more. Maybe there’s still enough landing for a rebate. If not, I’ll get it next time it fills in. If it doesn’t line up again, oh well—similar opportunities will likely arise elsewhere. I luck out; no one else has come through here yet. I point it straight at the kicker, jump, hit the ground and tomahawk. Although the stomp eludes me, I get up, shake off and ride away, content with my choice.
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THE POWDER PARADOX
https://digital.thesnowboardersjournal.com/articles/the-powder-paradox