Moderation

Whereas some people believe that a realist view implies pessimism, it is very important to keep an optimistic yet realistic outlook on life. To view the bad things in life as ways of juxtaposing and giving value to the good things in life is to live a fulfilling life and it is by this principle that I've been trying to live.

There is, however, some difficulty when one lives according to this rule. Just recently I was having a "bad day" and I accepted it as necessary for the value of my good day. But, in doing so, it became in itself a good day. Moreover, I found that after I accepted this day as a bad one, the bad events of the day hardly passed me by while the good ones stuck out (even though there were far more bad events than good). I realized that my optimism had changed this bad day into a good day and my seemingly solid motto became a sort of paradox. How can one truly experience bad days with such an optimistic outlook? One might answer this question with pesimism but a true pessimist cannot experience truly good days.

Although optimists can experience better and worse days, their relative scale is much more narrow than a person who has a balanced outlook on life. Now all of this might be pretty obvious but it just goes to show that a life lived in moderation is always better and more fulfililng than one lived in deprivation or excess.

Applying this new principle to the previous example of good and bad days yields better results; only when one truly experiences bad days and good days can one know the true value of a good day without falling too far on either side of the spectrum.

When one applies moderation to just about anything in life, one subsequently finds better results than far on either side of the scale. If one doesn't eat enough, one does not have enough energy or nutrients whereas someone who eats too much becomes fat and may weaken his/her heart. Even with something like money (which most people find best in excess), moderation is the best way to go. Scarcity of money leads to poverty and the obvious problems that accompany it. Excess of money, on the other hand, often leads to depression and unhappiness. Finding a balance between the two will provide the most benefits.