Making choices is tiring

Imagine, for a moment, that you are facing a very difficult decision about which of two job offers to accept. One position offers good pay and job security, but is pretty mundane, whereas the other job is really interesting and offers reasonable pay, but has questionable job security. Clearly you can go about resolving this dilemma in many ways. Few people, however, would say that your decision should be affected or influenced by whether or not you resisted the urge to eat cookies prior to contemplating the job offers. A decade of psychology research suggests otherwise. Unrelated activities that tax the executive function have important lingering effects, and may disrupt your ability to make such an important decision. In other words, you might choose the wrong job because you didn't eat a cookie. [bolding mine]

This hypothetical story starts an article in Scientific American that says making choices is tiring. The theory is that you have limited resources for executive function (for example, making a hard decision) and self-regulation (self-discipline, like not eating a cookie). A study by Kathleen Vohs et al. claims "choosing is more depleting than merely deliberating and forming preferences about options and more depleting than implementing choices made by someone else."

Maybe that's why people like to talk about choices instead of making a choice.