The 3 conspiracy

The other day, I was trying to make a point to someone and realized that I was struggling to come up with three reasons why it was important. This inability to produce three reasons seemed to invalidate my argument in my own mind. Why is that?

I thought about this for awhile, which is the result of too many days off for snow. I realized that I consistently make three point arguments, speeches, and lessons. Being an English teacher, I immediately thought of the 5 paragraph essay. It requires the basic structure of 3 supporting arguments or examples. Drilling down further, we teach that a paragraph needs three supporting sentences. Why the fascination with three? Is two not enough and four too much? This all reminds me of the story of Goldilocks and her constant choosing between three items.

Has this formula for writing affected the way media is produced? I think so. We look at stories as having three parts; a beginning, a middle, and an end. Movies hope to make it to trilogy status. More than three points in a sermon often bores us to the realm of sleep.

Is this a bad thing? No not really as structure makes us better writers. However, when people break through this barrier it makes us uncomfortable. It is beyond our norm which can make it great or awful. Agree with me or not, but I believe there may be a third option. That is what we have been taught.