Friday, June 07, 2013

DIY guide: moderation

Hi,
and welcome to one of those ever-popular DIY guides of the Most Exciting Blog in the World. Today I'll teach you how to be moderate.

mod·er·a·tion

  [mod-uh-rey-shuhn]
noun
1.
the quality of being moderaterestraint; avoidance of extremes or excesses; temperance.
2.
the act of moderating.
3.
moderations, British the first public examinations at Oxford University for the B.A. degree inmathematics or in classics.
4.
in moderation, without excess; moderately; temperately: to drink in moderation.

There is excess, and then there is lack. Or possibly pettiness. The correct term for the opposite of excess depends somewhat of the subject matter at hand. Anyway, too much is too much, and too little is too little. In between, there is moderation, and that is the key to happiness.

Examples of excess:

  • losing all of your funds in online poker
  • going on a bender for a week without telling your loved ones of your whereabouts
  • banning most of the things that make life worth living in the name of religion
  • lying motionless on the sofa in the name of ecology because doing something would increase your carbon footprint. 
Examples of the thing that is the opposite of excess:
  • never trying out Facebook because someone said it might be addictive
  • telling your partner not to have a 4th glass of wine even though they would like to and it's not even late
  • not going out for a bike ride because it might be dangerous
  • not living because it might be fatal.
In between of these things there is moderation and that's what you should strive for. The actual steps for striving for moderation might vary from situation to situation, but, hey, that's life. Just strive for moderation, to the max, and you shall be rewarded. 

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