"our domestic lives reflect the major trend that dominates the consumer marketplace today: an ever-increasing emphasis on variety and choice. ... we find ourselves inventing our lives as we go along, improvising in an effort to take advantage of the bewildering range of choices that we face."
Source : Robert Burton (1859). “The anatomy of melancholy: what it is, with all the kinds, causes, symptoms, prognostics, and several cures of it. In three partitions ...”, p.42