Why We Can’t Stop Chasing the Next Best Thing?
“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
Almost every meaningful decision in life boils down to the same quiet question:
Do we keep trying new things — or do we stick with what already works?
We face this choice constantly. New restaurants or familiar favorites. New careers or stable ones. New ideas or proven beliefs. Life, as we intuitively understand it, is a balance between novelty and tradition.
Something new to us carries a subtle promise: the reminder that there may still be better options we haven’t discovered yet. Even when what we have is good, the unknown keeps pulling at our attention. The new feels worthy of exploration precisely because it represents possibility.
Exploration vs. Exploitation
In decision science, this tension is called the explore–exploit trade-off.
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Exploration means gathering information — trying unfamiliar options to learn what they might offer.
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Exploitation means using what you already know to get a reliable, known result.
Neither is wrong. The difficulty lies in knowing when to switch from one to the other.
This problem appears not just in psychology or philosophy, but in computer science as well.
What Algorithms Can Teach Us About Human Choice
In computer science, the explore–exploit dilemma shows up in the classic multi-armed bandit problem. Imagine several slot machines, each with an unknown payout rate. You can keep playing the one that seems good — or you can try others that might be better.
A simple strategy is win-stay, lose-shift: if something works, repeat it; if it doesn’t, try something else. But real life is more complex. Good options shouldn’t be punished too harshly for being imperfect. Occasional failure doesn’t mean an option is bad.
More advanced approaches, like the Upper Confidence Bound (UCB) algorithm, take an optimistic stance toward uncertainty. They deliberately favor options we know less about — not because they’re better, but because they might be.
This helps explain a very human impulse:
sometimes, something completely unknown feels more attractive than an option we know works 70% of the time.
The unknown still has upside. The known has already revealed its limits.
Why the Unknown Feels So Tempting
We often say the grass is always greener on the other side. Mathematics quietly explains why this illusion persists. The unknown always carries the chance of being better — even if, statistically, it’s just as likely to be worse.
Trying and failing at least teaches us something. Failing to try creates a different kind of loss — the loss of what might have been.
This is why many people instinctively follow a regret-minimization mindset. If something fails, they can live with it. What lingers is the thought: What if I had tried?
A life aimed at minimizing regret doesn’t require perfect choices. It requires choices we can stand behind in hindsight.
How Our Strategy Changes With Age
The explore–exploit trade-off also explains why our priorities shift as we grow older.
Early in life, exploration often makes sense. We choose the new rather than the best, the exciting rather than the safe, the experimental rather than the optimized. We need years of trial and error to become competent, confident, and autonomous.
Over time, the balance shifts. People begin to optimize — their careers, relationships, habits, and social circles — to maximize emotional rewards and reduce risk. This gradual shift explains a familiar stereotype: the young as restless, the old as set in their ways.
It isn’t rigidity or immaturity. It’s adaptation to a changing decision landscape.
Optimism, Uncertainty, and Wisdom
At a deeper level, the explore–exploit trade-off offers a quiet moral insight. When we take the future seriously — not just the present — our decisions become more patient, more open, and more humane.
Optimism in the face of uncertainty isn’t naïve. It’s strategic.
For myself, I remain an optimist. It doesn’t seem to be much use being anything else. To try and fail is at least to learn. To refuse to try is to accept an immeasurable loss.
In the end, wisdom isn’t about always choosing the latest or the greatest.
It’s about knowing when to keep searching — and when to commit.
