Is Your Life Excessive?

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving with my family to the beach when I found myself wondering about a particular word. It was one of those periods in a car trip when all the occupants are absorbed in the busy-ness of their private worlds. I suddenly realized that I’d been thinking about what the opposite of the word “excessive” might be.

I don’t even know what set me off on this particular line of enquiry but, as I was mulling it over, it dawned on me that I couldn’t easily come up with the opposite. I shared my dilemma with my wife and son. To their surprise, they couldn’t think of an opposite either.

Despite the elusiveness of the answer, we had a lot of fun for the rest of the journey, imagining what the word might be. Suggestions such as “incessive” and “outcessive” were some of the more sensible ideas that were offered.

Once we got to the beach and had settled in for the next couple of hours, I brought up the site wordhippo on my phone. Before getting to the long list of opposite possibilities that were available, I was struck by the way the word itself was presented. The question at the top was “What is the opposite of excessive?” and, underneath that were a few visible lines with lots more that could be accessed. The first few lines specified “opposite of more than is necessary, normal, or desirable.”

I was stuck on those three words—necessary, normal, desirable. I couldn’t get to the opposite part because I kept going over and over these words. Is “excessive” really more than what is necessary, normal, or desirable? And, perhaps more importantly, who decides what is necessary, normal, or desirable? Would necessary, normal, or desirable for Elon Musk be the same as necessary, normal, or desirable for me? Are these three words even the same? Is a necessary amount of food each day the same as a desirable amount of daily nutrition?

Source: oatstocker, Image ID: 107203082, @123RF

If I have more than a normal amount of savings (whatever that is), does that mean I have an excessive amount of savings? My son currently goes to the gym every day. Are daily gym sessions necessary? By what standards should “necessary” be measured? At the moment, my son wants to go to the gym everyday so for him the daily attendance is definitely desirable. Does that mean his gym attendance is excessive or not?

On the way home from the beach, I shared my findings with my wife and son, and they were similarly puzzled.

Given that we were not convinced about the way in which “excessive” was being explained, it was no surprise that we found the opposites difficult to fathom. Words like “medium,” “normal,” “fair,” and “tolerable” were in the selection. There were other words like “insufficient” and “inadequate,” but they seemed to miss the mark as well. For us, “inadequate” would seem to be the opposite of “adequate” and we didn’t think “adequate” and “excessive” were the same thing.

Through all our playing around, it was fascinating to realize just how personal and individually defined even simple words and concepts can be. For us, this was not just a pointless and pedantic exercise in semantics. Decisions can be made that affect people’s lives based on concepts such as excessiveness. Using excessive force, for example, can be a very serious charge, and decisions about someone’s mental state can be made according to what might be judged to be excessive behaviour by people in decision-making positions.

Surely, the angle from which “excessive” is being judged is critical. Excessive according to whom? If I think your behavior is excessive but you think it’s just what you need to achieve what’s important to you, who is right?

It seems there’s no getting away from the importance of perspective. We all have our own unique views about the life we are living and the life we’d like to be living. Often, many people also have views about the life others should be living. Deciding how other people should be living their lives without due regard for the perspective they have on how they should be living their lives is the essence of social strife.

Perhaps by being more aware of the ubiquitous importance of perspective, even for seemingly simple things, such as a word like excessive, we’ll have a much better chance of all keeping our perspectives as we would like them to be. Is an excessively contented and cohesive global village too much to hope for and work towards?