We’re All in the Goldilocks Business

Life, for all of us, has to be “just right.”

Reviewed by Tyler Woods

Key points

• Like Goldilocks, we all know when things are and aren’t “just right.”
• Contented living involves keeping our “just right” states, just right.
• When something is not just right from our unique perspective, we do what we can to correct it.

I’m assuming the story of Goldilocks is still as well-known as it was when I was a child—at least in the Western world, that is. For anyone who missed this whimsical tale, however, Goldilocks was a young home invader who visited the Bears’ family home while they were not there. In their absence, Goldilocks traipsed around the house, trying out different things. She tasted some porridge in bowls at the kitchen table, perhaps cooling until the Bears returned. And she tested the comfiness of chairs in the lounge room.

On each occasion, Goldilocks found that some options were not to her liking, while others were “just right.” One bowl of porridge, for example, was “too hot.” Another was “too cold.” The third was “just right.” In the lounge room, one chair was “too soft,” another was “too hard,” but one was “just right.”

While we might question Goldilocks’s sense of decency and respect for boundaries and personal property, there is no doubting the credibility of her approach. The general description in this fable applies universally to any living thing. Although it wasn’t explained this way in the story, even the Bears had their own just rights. When they came home and found the fair-haired intruder, along with evidence of her shenanigans, their world was a long way from “just right,” and they did what they could to restore order.

The “just right” perspective can be used to understand the goings-on of daily life generally. Everything we do centers around keeping our just rights the way we want them to be. We don’t have just rights about every single aspect of life. There are some things we don’t care too much about. All of us, however, have just rights about some things. Many things, actually. And it’s those things that define our life and our living. In turn, our life and our living shape the just rights we have.

Our central task, all day, every day, is to protect and nurture our just-right states. We can also create new just-right states and snuggle them into the multitudinous just-right jigsaw puzzle of our lives. Recently, I had a work lunch with a good mate and colleague who suggested we try the black bean pork ribs. I’d never heard of them before but, oh my word! That dish is now a firm favourite and a just-right state I recreate every time I visit that place.

Different experiences often provide us with opportunities to hitch up new just rights. We can also tweak, adjust, and update the just rights we already have. At any point in time, though, our life proceeds according to the existing assortment of just rights that define who we are and what our experiences are to be.

I’ve always thought it kind of quirky that we mostly only become aware of just rights when they are bumped out of their just-right state. When everything is going along “just right,” we busy ourselves with whatever is at the front of our minds. The minute, however, that circumstances conspire to give one of our just rights a nudge or a shove, our attention is captured by this turn of events and we are compelled to act until order is restored.

From this perspective, we never “do nothing.” At all times, we are keeping our just rights in the pristine condition we like them to be in. When you see someone driving along the road but not moving the steering wheel, the driver is not “doing nothing.” The driver is maintaining the car in its just-right position on the right road. The car is currently positioned where it is supposed to be, so there is no need for the driver to change what they are doing. Once the car begins to drift away from its just-right position, however, the driver will change what they are doing to return the car to the position that is just right (for them).

So, we only change what we are doing when part of our world has been jostled or bumped away from its just-right standard. While things are in their just-right states, we hold the line and keep doing what we’re doing.

Noticing what you pay attention to each day, at any moment, can give you a sense of some of the areas in which you might have just rights dwelling. Did you get miffed when your colleague failed to respond to your morning greeting? Were you irritated when the car at the intersection didn’t come to a complete stop at the stop sign? Were you peeved when the waiter took someone else’s order before yours, even though you’d been waiting longer?

None of these things are particularly earth-shattering or monumental gaffs. In fact, for some people, they wouldn’t even register as a just-right twitch. But if they’re important to you, they’re important.

Getting to know ourselves in terms of the just-right way we want to live our lives can help us be more certain about what we want and how we want to spend our time. The clearer we can be about the crucial just right commanders of our living, the more likely we are to experience the smooth sailing life can be.