The other day I went to the movies and was told I had enough points on my frequent moviegoer card for some free food. Yay: I wanted a small popcorn and a small Pepsi. “Small,” incidentally, is the size they labeled “medium” until a few months ago.
Not possible, I was told. They could give me a great big serving of popcorn with a big drink, or a smaller size popcorn and two drinks. But if I wanted to get less, I’d have to pay.
So I did pay ($5.50). I didn’t want the temptation of too much food and drink in front of me: I knew what would happen. And I couldn’t bring myself to order something and throw it away up front. Waste like that just seems obscene. I know, I know: I did waste something ($5.50). It’s the decision I made on the spot rather than hold up the line. Maybe next time I’ll waste their resources rather than mine. But only maybe. Because I know how easy it’ll be for me to start rationalizing. They’re giving it to you free, so just take it and get into the theater. You can always stop eating and drinking before you’re done. Yeah … that’ll happen.
It’s a perverse system. The theater insists on giving away more than I want, even though I’m content to consume less? They want to punish the choice to consume less by charging for it? I don’t get the logic at all — unless they’re simply encouraging everyone to pig out on the general calculation that, in the long run, an audience of pigs is good for business.
I kinda think that’s exactly what they’re doing. They, and restaurant chains, and credit-card companies, and government officials, and countless others who’ve decided that they’ll benefit from urging us to be a bunch of undisciplined hedonists. Whatever the motive, however, that’s certainly the result: Urgings to excess are everywhere.
Boundless authors have written about this sort of thing before. I’m interested in which examples stand out in your mind. What sort of urgings to excess do you experience in the world? Talk about any area of life — food, money, consumer goods — that isn’t bad in itself but can be bad when you overdo it.
