Too much of a good thing

I don't believe you can have too much of a good thing. Ever. There are so many crappy things in this life, having a lot of a good thing can't be anything but good.

Ok, I take it back. You can have too much of a good thing. Like money. Money is a good thing. But sometimes, when people get a lot of it, it ruins them.

However, love, which also is a good thing, you can NEVER have too much of.

I take back my first statement. You CAN have too much of a good thing, but it depends on the thing and the person who has it.

too much of a good thing is wonderful
Mae West.

If your translation is correct, I see a huge difference between "doing" and "having".

But I think both over-doing and over-having can be just as dangerous as under-doing and under-having.

For example: chocolate is a good thing and studies suggest that a little of the right chocolate can even be good for you. Too much chocolate makes you fat, rots your teeth, clogs your arteries and so on and so on.

Wine? A little is a good thing, too much is not a good thing at all.

Work is a good thing - too much work robs you of your life.

I'm very content with medium-do and medium-have.

Thank you for your responses. Are we agreed, then, that anything worth doing is worth doing only up to a point of diminishing returns? That anything beyond that is overkill?

Yes, and you need balance. Hasn't it been said that humans need tragedy to counterbalance joy? Just like 9-11, people rallied and were so productive and cooperative and loving with each other - a result of abject despair and tragedy. We don't hug and tell each other we love each other 20 times a day because then it becomes rote. But when it's a special hug here and there, just because, that is extra meaningful and appreciated.

From an economical point of view, the law of diminishing marginal utility states that there will be a point where a product will provide less and less satisfaction.

From my philosophical point of view, yeah there can be too much of a good thing depending on what you mean by "good" of course.

An experiment on mice shows that when an electrical or magnetic signal is stimulated in the part of the brain that gives the feeling it gets from having sex, the mice will keep pressing the button that stimulated the feeling even when it is exhausted. This shows the nature of addiction and how too much of a good thing can really do harm your or someone in this sense.

Re: Too much of a good thing
Merry Andrew

Sorry. but is it Stanislaw Lec or Stanislaw Lem?

I don't think you can get enough of a good thing. When you think you do it is because of the fact that what you think is a good thing isn't good at all, and you realize it slowly as you get more and more.

The initial quote, "sometimes something worth doing is worth overdoing", seems perfectly edible at first glance, but it is really just a wordplay. What is to overdo something?

Val, gee, now I'm not sure. I got the quote off an internet site and now I can't find the site again. I'll keep looking. You could be right. I didn't cut-and-paste but retyped it.

Merry Andrew

I asked that because Lem was a great s/f writter. The film "Solaris" was based in one of his novels. But my favorite book is "The congress of Futurology", a sarcastic novel where he shows the absurd of the communist propaganda in the east Europe countries in contrast with the sordid reality of the daily life. I think it remains very actual.

About the topic, I agree with Ciracuz. When we get tired of something we considered good, it's because it is not good anymore.
Example: I like fish, like sole. But if I had to eat sole every day, I think I would be sick only by the view of a sole. The same thing can be bood or not, depending on the situations.

Val, then it very likely was Lem not Lec. The quote comes from a site called Daily Thoughts. They e-mail me a daily reminder to fight hunger, along with a nice phoyograph of some sort and a quote of some sort. Yoiu hekp to donate food to the hungry by clicking on the site. I click each day, then delete the mail. I don't think they maintain an archive so now I can't find the quote again.

Thanks for your input.

Everything in Moderation...

including moderation