The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.

Excess always swings back

We live in a world of overcorrection. Push productivity too hard and you burn out, then swing toward complete rest and guilt. Diet too strictly and you binge. Scroll endlessly on your phone and suddenly you're deleting every app. Plato's observation, made thousands of years ago, feels oddly urgent now—maybe because we've made it easier than ever to push things to extremes.

The insight isn't that balance is good. It's that imbalance is almost mechanically self-correcting, and that correction often overshoots. When you're running on fumes, your body doesn't gently suggest a nap—it crashes hard. When you've been saying yes to everything, the pendulum swings and you say no to almost everything, including things that matter. Recognizing this pattern in yourself before it happens is the real skill. It means noticing when you're in the phase of excess, not waiting for the reaction to arrive and suddenly reorganize your life.

The practical version: what are you doing too much of right now? That might tell you something important about what's coming.