My mother’s voice rings in my head, explaining why it’s time to go to bed, turn off the TV, or stop eating Hallowe’en candy. As a child, I took this as adultly wisdom, an incontestable law of life. My catholic upbringing, tinging everything with guilt, suggested to me that expecting good things to continue indefinitely was greedy, or one of the other deadly sins.
But, Why can’t good things go on forever? Wouldn’t that make people happier and therefore be great?
Some of this is the end of summer.1 About once a year, I wonder why it isn’t summer all the time. Summer is so much lovelier than withering fall, frost-biting winter or sopping spring. Every year, I wanna know why I don’t live somewhere it’s summer all the time. The best answer I’ve come up with is that I don’t have the right citizenship or zillions of dollars to become the right citizen. Here’s an idea: If it was summer all the time in Canada, it would increase our grain exports.
Ok, geography dictates seasonal variation in weather and can’t be changed. Fine.
Whether you enjoy the turning of the seasons, or prefer some other season than the best one, September has other unpleasant endings. If you’re a student, parent, educator or someone who has been raised in the cycle of the school year, September is the end of freedom, i.e. the beginning of School, having to wear real clothes – shoes even, eat only after the bell rings, be someplace at a time, and perhaps surrender your link to friends, influencers and furry frolickers (i.e. phone).
It’s difficult to participate in current society without going to school/work. If the alternative to the end of summer vacation is to never work or go to school, that’s not a good trade off. Fine, vacation has to end because it wouldn’t be a vacation without something to vacation from.
Why is consuming ten drinks not 10x as enjoyable as consuming one drink? Consider how one alcoholic drink is delicious and slightly intoxicating. Two taste good and come with enough intoxication that, depending on the circumstances, can either lead to dancing with abandon or a DUI charge. Of course, continuing to imbibe alcohol indefinitely leads to toxicity, malnutrition and social issues. There’s good things coming to an end, as in stoppng before the excesses of enjoyable things lead to unpleasant outcomes.
The same equation applies to eating delicious things, like butter tarts, donuts, steak or chicken wings, and doing fun things, like getting tattoos, playing online games, betting on sports, or clothes shopping. One time is good, ten in rapid succession is bad, because of cost, calories, addiction potential, or all of the above.
There are things that lie outside this mathematical rule of excesses. Consuming ten times as many carrots or glasses of water might be ok, as would getting ten times as much exercise or reading ten times as many books. The critical point is the baseline: ten times as much exercise is good if 30 minutes a week goes to 5 hours a week, but not so much if 5 hours a week going to 50.
Then there are products and services that customers enjoy, but end, for no apparently good reason. Happens to me all the time – my favourite hot cereal, perfect shampoo for my hair, the best place for Chinese takeout, the flavour of food most enjoyed by my cat etc., are discontinued, unavailable or made into a ‘new and improved version’ that suck. Services too. I was fine with someone else pumping gas into my car, a human to talk to on the other end of the customer service line, or having an agent book a flight, sell a house, or put together an insurance policy for me.
Yes, these services are still available in exceptional businesses but they used to be the norm. There are good business explanations for all these changes, often related to providing as many people as possible with what they want. When items or businesses are discontinued, it’s because a major market segment wants something else. With service levels, offering a lower price, or more convenience, is often achieved with a self-serve model.
This tread started because I was sad at the inevitable end of some good things. Most poignantly, relationships with loved ones have to end sometimes. If you move to a distant land, it isn’t possible to be everyday friends with people who aren’t in your time zone. People fall out of love, or grow in different directions. With pets, few have the life span of a human, meaning your beloved furry companion is going to pass in your life time. If you’re old like me, many generations of furry loved ones have lived their full life expectancies, leaving all too soon for my liking.
Realistically, I know why good things have to come to an end. Some of it is an immutable law of nature: the cycle of life and death (the seasons changing is one example). Some of it defaults to the cliche “too much of a good thing is a bad thing”. Humans are built to express joy and fulfilment when we consume rich things. This is left over from times when it would be unusual to have access to too much, but we are living in a too much culture now. We have to stop consuming the rich things before they make us poor.
As for businesses that discontinue items, perhaps that too is a natural cycle of human interest. We like change and variety, so old products get replaced. I imagine there are as many new things that I greet with glee as old ones I miss, although in different categories.
Why do all good things come to an end? To make way for new good things. Like the end of the day – evening, when all is mellow and about enjoyment. Or the end of the work week (Friday) has always felt specially relaxing to me. And there are the end of good-for-you things, that aren’t very pleasant, like going to the dentist, doing your taxes, fitness activities you aren’t into, cleaning the toilet, hiring a lawyer to write your will, etc. Let them end, asap.
Damn, I guess my mother’s adultly wisdom was right. Mostly it’s a good thing that good things end.
- The header image shows late summer flowers.