Do too many options eliminate our chance of satisfaction?

   In modern day America, us consumers are faced with an astounding abundance of choices in regard to almost everything.
   I was wandering the local mall the other day, in search of a good pair of a new pair of shorts for summer. As I entered the first store, what I had first perceived as a large and pleasant display of shorts, morphed into an extremely convoluted and frustrating jumble of cloth. It seemed simple; Find a nice pair of shorts, maybe a few shirts, then leave. I was hit by a dozens of choices-- dark, light, medium wash, or colored, high rise, low rise, some rise in-between, frayed, folded, aztec printed, booty-shorts, khakis, lace-- the list goes on from there. I would pick out one pair I thought was a good one, then turn back to pick out an even better one by comparison. I did this several times. After about a half an hour of contemplation, I left the store empty-handed and frazzled.
   In a study done by two graduate students of Stanford and Columbia, it was found that people were generally more satisfied by their end choice, if less options were initially provided. They set up two separate jam stands in a store-- one offering 6 choices, the other with a more elaborate display of 24. While people were more attracted to the larger display (about 60% to 40% of the more limited stand), there was roughly a 27% increase in the number of actual purchases by the samplers at the smaller stand.
   Imagine you had to find something to fix for lunch. In one scenario, you were at home and all you had was either a peanut butter sandwich, or a tomato salad. It may take you a few seconds to decide which one you want, as they are very distinctly different options. If you're feeling like you may need something more substantial you'd probably choose the sandwich, if not you'd probably choose the salad. The choice is more than likely an obvious one, and you'd probably be satisfied by the choice you made between the two.
    Now, imagine that you need lunch, and you enter a large supermarket. Even if you'd narrowed your options down to a salad, you're now faced with multiple choices: Meat or seafood? Spinach or kale? Cheddar or feta? Ranch or vinaigrette  Big or small? Lets say you chose chicken-- even then, fried or baked? Skinless? Diced or cubed? So many options and combinations make it seem like there is an "ideal" option. Like there is a "perfect" choice to be made, and you don't want to choose the one that doesn't live up to the other in comparison. So how do you decide to choose?
   This is a question that seems to stump many of us. "One way to tackle the choice problem is to become more comfortable with the idea of “good enough,” said Barry Schwartz, a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College and author of “The Paradox of Choice” (Ecco, 2003). 
   As an incredible perfectionist, my initial reaction was to reject this idea entirely. "Good enough" is not nearly good enough-- there frankly has to be an optimal option. 
   ...Right? 
   
   Of course not.  The idea that someone can optimize something to such an extreme level, that caters to every individual everywhere is ludicrous. If different people have different taste (which we clearly do), and most decisions are situational and temporary, how could something possibly be "Perfect"?  
   The answer is that it can't, obviously. But this is contradictory to what society and the media leads us to believe.  There's an astounding amount of variation in the products available to us nowadays, and we're constantly lead to believe that the brand selling a certain product is the "best" option (the billion commercials depicting a Utopian life featuring their product are happy to tell us why). 
   So, are society, and capitalism paralyzing us, and setting us up for failure? What can we do to help reduce our paradox of choice paralysis? Would we all be more happy as minimalists? And how do we escape idealism, and simply make choices we can be satisfied with?