Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Sometimes you will hear an English speaker say something like “We’re looking for that Goldilocks sweet spot”.  What does that mean?

As you can see from the story, Goldilocks is a fairy tale, which is a story told to children at a very young age.  It usually has a “moral” to it, but it also sometimes is just a short story meant to entertain children.  It’s usually read at bedtime, so this means that most people know the stories, and the stories have entered our culture as a shared point of reference.  By which I mean, you can just mention a name, such as “Goldilocks”, and everyone knows exactly to what you are referring.  This makes learning about American culture difficult sometimes, because there are many of those cultural landmines that you may not know.

When someone mentions the “Goldilocks sweet spot”, what they are saying is that they are looking for the thing that is “just right”.  Neither too hot nor too cold, neither too hard nor too soft, neither too big nor too small.

You’ll notice in the story that there is also an undercurrent of destruction – whenever Goldilocks finds the “just right” thing, she destroys it.  What do you think is the purpose for this detail in the story?