William Blake once famously scribbled that "the road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom." It sounds poetic. It sounds like a great excuse for a wild weekend or a massive shopping spree. But honestly? Most of us just end up tired, broke, or wondering why we have three different subscriptions to the exact same type of streaming service. We live in a world designed to push us toward more. More productivity. More "self-care" products. More digital noise.
It's a trap.
The reality of the road to excess isn't usually a glamorous downward spiral into rock-and-roll debauchery. Usually, it’s just the slow, grinding accumulation of "stuff" and "tasks" until you can't breathe. We’ve been conditioned to think that if something is good, more of it must be better.
The Psychological Hook Behind the Road to Excess
Why do we do this to ourselves? Brain chemistry. Dopamine is a liar. It doesn't actually provide the "reward" or the "happiness"; it just handles the "wanting." When you’re scrolling through a marketplace or looking at a fresh project list, your brain is firing off signals that say this is the one. This is the thing that makes it all click.
Stanford psychiatrist Dr. Anna Lembke covers this brilliantly in her work on dopamine. She argues that we’ve transformed the world into a kind of hyperefficient delivery system for dopamine hits. Because our brains haven't evolved as fast as our technology, we are still wired for scarcity. In a world of abundance, those same survival instincts drive us straight down the road to excess because we don't know how to stop.
It's "pleasure-pain" balance. When we over-stimulate the pleasure side, the brain compensates by tipping the scales toward pain to stay level. That’s why the "high" from a big purchase or a sugary snack is followed by a crash. You aren't just returning to baseline; you’re actually dipping below it.
The Myth of Productivity Excess
We see this most clearly in work culture. People wear burnout like a badge of honor. You’ve probably seen the LinkedIn posts. Someone bragging about a 90-hour work week like they’ve found the secret to life.
But there’s a point of diminishing returns. Research from John Pencavel at Stanford University showed that employee productivity falls off a cliff after 55 hours a week. In fact, someone working 70 hours produces almost nothing more than someone working 55. The extra 15 hours are just... noise. They are the road to excess in its most corporate form. It’s performative busyness that destroys the actual quality of the work and the health of the human doing it.
Digital Clutter and Information Overload
Then there's the phone. You pick it up to check the time. Forty minutes later, you’re looking at a video of a guy building a primitive swimming pool in the jungle.
We consume an average of 34 gigabytes of data every single day. That is an absurd amount of information for a biological machine that was originally designed to track weather patterns and avoid being eaten by leopards. This isn't just "staying informed." It’s a sensory excess that leaves us feeling constantly anxious but strangely bored.
Why We Get It Wrong: The "More is Better" Fallacy
Most of our modern problems are problems of abundance, not scarcity. We have too much food, too much information, and too many choices.
Barry Schwartz, in The Paradox of Choice, explains that having too many options actually makes us less happy. It leads to "decision paralysis." When you have 50 types of jam to choose from, you’re more likely to buy none—and even if you do buy one, you’re less satisfied with it because you’re worried you picked the wrong one. The road to excess isn't a path to freedom; it's a path to regret.
Think about "lifestyle creep." You get a raise. Suddenly, the coffee you liked is "bad" and you need the $8 artisan brew. The apartment that felt big enough is now "cramped." You aren't actually enjoying the higher quality of life; you’ve just reset your baseline. You’re running faster on the treadmill just to stay in the same place.
The Physical Cost of Going Too Far
It isn't just in your head. The body keeps the score. Chronic excess leads to systemic inflammation, elevated cortisol, and sleep deprivation.
Take the "biohacking" trend. It started as a way to optimize health. Now, people are taking 40 supplements a morning, wearing three different tracking rings, and stressing out because their "deep sleep" score was 4% lower than yesterday. It’s an excess of health-seeking that actually creates more stress.
- Financial Strain: Excess spending isn't always about luxury. It's the "death by a thousand cuts" from subscriptions and small conveniences.
- Relationship Friction: When we are obsessed with our own "more," we have less "space" for others.
- Cognitive Load: Trying to manage too many things makes you dumber. It literally lowers your functional IQ by a few points because your brain is spread too thin.
We are basically over-clocking our internal processors and wondering why the fan is spinning so loud.
The Turning Point: Finding the "Exit"
So, how do you get off the road to excess? It isn’t about becoming a monk or living in a tiny house in the woods (unless you really want to). It’s about intentionality.
The philosopher Epicurus—who is often wrongly associated with pure hedonism—actually taught that the key to happiness was limiting desires. He realized that if you want a lot, you are always "poor" because you don't have what you want. If you want a little, you are "rich" almost instantly.
Practical Minimalism (That Isn't Boring)
Minimalism got a bad rap because of those photos of empty white rooms with one chair. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Practical minimalism is just about removing the "excess" that doesn't add value.
Look at your commitments. If you’re saying "yes" to everything, you’re saying "no" to your own peace of mind.
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Try a digital fast. Not for a month—maybe just for four hours on a Sunday. You’ll realize how much of your "need" for information is just a nervous habit. The world doesn't end if you don't know what happened on Twitter for an afternoon.
Redefining the Palace of Wisdom
Blake might have been right that the road to excess leads to wisdom, but only if you actually learn something when you hit the wall. The wisdom isn't in the excess itself. The wisdom is in the realization that the excess didn't give you what it promised.
True mastery of life is usually found in the middle. The "Golden Mean" as Aristotle called it. Courage is the middle ground between being a coward and being reckless. Generosity is the middle ground between being a miser and being wasteful.
How to Scale Back Starting Today
If you feel like you've been traveling the road to excess for too long, you don't need a massive life overhaul. You just need to stop the momentum.
Audit your "Auto-Pilot" spending.
Check your bank statement for anything that renews automatically. If you haven't used it in thirty days, kill it. This isn't just about the money; it's about the psychological weight of "owning" that service.
The "One In, One Out" Rule.
Want a new pair of shoes? Cool. Give an old pair away. This forces you to evaluate if the "new" thing is actually better than what you already have. It stops the physical accumulation of excess before it starts.
Time-Boxing Social Media.
Set a timer. When it goes off, you’re done. The infinite scroll is the ultimate road to excess because it literally has no end. You have to create the end yourself.
Practice "Good Enough."
Not everything needs to be optimized. Not every meal needs to be "the best meal ever." Not every workout needs to be a "personal record." Lowering the bar for "success" in mundane tasks frees up energy for the things that actually matter.
Physical Space Clearance.
Clear your desk. Clear your kitchen counter. Visual clutter creates mental clutter. When you reduce the visual input, your brain's "idle" speed slows down.
The goal isn't to live a life of deprivation. It’s to live a life where the things you have and the things you do actually mean something. Excess is just noise. Silence is where you actually find the palace of wisdom.