Slippery slope anxiety.

As part of my weight-loss and healthier eating program, I’ve recently discovered how to make vegetable soup from scratch. It’s remarkably easy, as a matter of fact. But I can imagine what would happen to someone’s soup if he approached it based on the fear of a slippery slope.

The recipe calls for salt, but out of a fear of putting in too much salt, the novice would put in none at all. The recipe calls for pepper, but out of a fear of one pinch leading to a pile, he would leave it out altogether. The recipe calls for carrots, but from a fear of carrots dominating the flavor, he might put in none. The recipe calls for onions, but too many onions makes a funky texture, so maybe he doesn’t use any. And the recipe calls for many other things, but every time he goes to add something, he instead refrains out of an irrational fear of not being able to stop before he’s added too much.

In the end, of course, he winds up with a pot full of piping hot garlic water (because everybody knows you can never add too much garlic to anything). And that’s the point. If we’re always so afraid of excess whatever that we do no whatever at all, the soup of our lives winds up being devoid of both taste and nutritional value.