More Sometimes Is More
Every time I find an article on the concept of “lagom,” I pause on it because I know this idea doesn’t come naturally to me. If something is good, I tend to want more of it. Time with the twins is good? I want more of it. Of course. But I’ve also been known to fall in love with a box of tea and buy excessive amounts of it, or have fun on a trip and want to stuff in more sights or more days. It’s a hard idea for me to wrap my brain around: That just because something is good doesn’t mean that you should have more.
The most recent article was in BigThink.
Many of us have internalized the ideas that bigger means better, that a bank balance means status, and that excess means happiness. Lagom, though, is to enjoy the “just right.” It’s not simply learning to “enjoy the simple things,” but also appreciating that sometimes less really is more.
The examples make sense: “Talking to a friend over a coffee is nice. But meeting with ten friends after ten coffees does not make things better.” Yes, absolutely, true. But at the same time, I kept replacing the example with things I really do want in larger amounts: books, time with people I love, photographs. And in all of those places, more really was more.
What do you think of this idea?
3 comments
Hmmm. As a teenager I rode horses, and sometimes one of the people who taught me jumping lessons, if everything she had planned went well quickly, would start adding new and sometimes sort of whacky combinations of jumps, turns, etc. These sometimes ended, well, not badly in any meaningfully horrible sense (as is certainly possible when jumping horses over obstacles), but — awkwardly and occasionally unpleasantly.
I forget how old/mature I needed to get before I realized that it is GOOD to end a jumping lesson when everything is going well and seems, if not easy, straightforward.
… similarly, I now try to remind myself that it is good to leave the party when I am still having fun and at least one person there is still hoping to converse with me longer, that it is good to have more books I want to read than time to read them, etc. Sure, it’s a balance, but I don’t want to reach a point where I’ve read, explored, seen, eaten … everything, and don’t have anything left I want to do (or people left who want to talk with me!).
I have a hard time with people (*cough* Bezos, Musk *cough*) for whom enough is never enough. This is where I take it. I have enough right now. I have planned (if everything works out correctly) to have enough going forward. When I wish for more, or buy a lottery ticket, I imagine giving it away in ways that I can control.
But then, I’ve always had an awareness of being at the point of “too much of a good thing.” The easiest example was what we call “too much family togetherness” – I can stay at my oldest sister’s house for 10-11 days without getting on her nerves. Add in the other 2 sisters and she’s sick of us all in 2 days. When my mom was around, it was a matter of hours before everyone needed a break. But she loves to see us and frequently says we should all buy houses on her block.
I definitely share some of your tendencies. If something is good, I want more of it. But I can definitely relate to the concept of “just enough” too. Some years ago, we went to a resort that had bottomless champagne. There was champagne at lunch, we could take a bottle back to our room, and then champagne as a pre-dinner drink. I definitely learned that you CAN have too much of a good thing. (And not because I was inebriated – I just got sick of champagne! lol)
I know it was part of my upbringing – moderation in all things! (I haven’t always stuck to this. Sigh.) But the best thing was learning that a “treat” was something special. If you have “treats” all the time (whether they are people or travel or food or drink or music), they can lose their luster.