Moderation Proclamation!

Is moderation all that it’s cracked up to be? I sure hope so in light of the fact that today, of all days, is the perfect day for all Americans to exercise (pun intended) restraint and learn to moderate!

That said, I don’t think that everything truly is (always) better in moderation. My argument is simple- since life can very easily suck at times, why not (over)enjoy yourself when you have the opportunity? We never know what will happen the next minute, hour, day, year etc. so why overindulgence while you can?  Just because doing so when eating/tv/gaming/drinking has obvious negative consequences, can you really read the Bible too much, spend too much time with your kids, love your wife too much….you get the picture.

I think the trick is to moderate what you moderate. It can be fun to just go nuts on occasion with a particular activity. The caveat is in ‘going nuts’ is to make these acts serve as reward that can actually help you change your habits. It can go something like this- moderate, moderate, moderate, moderate, indulge, abstain, moderate, moderate moderate, moderate.

For example, I recently discovered the TV show ‘Louie C.K.,’ yeah I’m a bit behind, and I’ll admit that I overindulged in the form of watching season one in it’s entirety over a two day period. Too much? Yeah, probably but after watching the the 12th episode, ‘Gym,’ I decided that it is impossible to have too much Louie. However, since I like have episodes remaining, I decided to limit or reward myself to one episode per day until I run out. For me the schedule was more like INDULGE, abstain, moderate, moderate, moderate, moderate……

I know I’m a bit all over the map but allow me put in concisely- it is important to exercise moderation in ALL aspects of life but if you never allow yourself to indulge, and thereby not reward your good practices, it could all be for nothing.