The Middling Way

'Everything in moderation - including moderation' - Oscar Wilde

I am going to address another broad concept that I have found useful in my day to day life. The above quote sums it up pretty nicely, and it had helped keep me in two ways, which I'll detail below. As with most of the things that I discuss here, I haven't always lived this way - it's been something that I've had to become conscious of as I've gotten older. I think it's worth writing about because it seems to be one of those 'Life 101' things that is so basic that it often gets forgotten about.

The concept itself is basically that of not taking too much of a slant on any one issue in your life - but at the same time, not living in a way that is completely devoid of strong opinions or actions. I strive to be neither too frugal with my money, nor spend it too quickly. When I undertake activities to improve my fitness, I make sure that I am not overworking myself too hard, but I also make sure to do them as often as I can so as not to let my fitness suffer. I don't have too many strong opinions on things that don't concern me - in my own personal life, this comes down to politics and a lot of other things with a heavily technical base. In my work life as well, I also strive to be useful and productive, but overworking is a big concern for me as it's caused me big problems in the past.

Sustainability is the name of the game with this concept, which I've come to call 'The Middling Way' (I can't say that I discuss or even consciously think about it by name, however). This is the first of the two ways in which it's benefitted me overall - in moving the sustainability of a lot of things that I do to the fore, it's allowed me to get maximum benefit from them and helped give me a good, solid structure around which to build a comfortable and satisfying life. There's more of a sense of balance around all of my actions since I came by this concept, and that's what's needed when your support network is small. It's made all the difference to slow down and have periods where nothing is done to excess and moderation rules. It gives one perspective on what unbalance looks like, and probably most importantly, has a way of creating a knock-on effect where areas of imbalance become easier to identify and work on. This echoes what I said in an earlier post about holistic thinking.

The second main benefit that I've noticed is in the changes in the way I approach something that requires I do in fact throw caution to the wind and do something to excess. In this regard, I'm mainly talking about the increased ability that I get when doing something in this fashion, and also the increased satisfaction that I get from it as well.

Think about an Olympic runner - they don't put in an Olympic level performance every time they train. But the training they do allows them to build a stronger foundation for the time when they do need to pull out all of the stops - the actual event they compete in at the Olympics. It conditions them to handle conditions of relatively extreme stress, and allows them to push themselves harder than they otherwise would be able to. It's the same with the concept I'm exploring here - moderation allows you to condition yourself to a greater degree for situations you might find yourself in where you'll need better abilities than what you've already got. It could be said that this is the 'including moderation' part of the quote at the beginning of this entry. This idea goes for more than just the physical too - you can apply this to your temper, mental capacity, or even financial situations.

I have tried to say a lot in this entry about a pretty huge concept. I hope the main point has come across. I will be wrapping up with dealing with these more nebulous concepts before too long, and continuing with some more practical advice for a self-supporting individual. I hope you keep reading.

Peace.