Moderation - Life's Lesson

It seems everything in life is paradoxical or contradictory or a circle without a beginning and end. Too little or too much of anything is not good for any living beings. Yet we get sucked into that one way street only to complete the circle starting all over, may be in a different setting because of influence of time. Only time seems to be moving in one direction. Everything else goes in cycle – only period varies. City life and its glitter and gold lure us to accept the fast pace, gather wealth, and be immersed in a material world. Urban noise desensitizes us. Most of our waking hours are spent sitting (in a car, in a plane, in front of a TV, at our desk at work …). Those who are able to gather wealth (others who would also love to be in their shoes and try tirelessly to get out of their own fish trap) eat, drink, and waste more than they need to. They try to live in a germ free environment so that they can live longer. Then reality hits. They become obese. High blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, stress, stroke, cancer begin to defy their modern living. They begin to worry about frailty. Then they seek a gymnasium to work out. Aerobic DVDs, exercise show on TV, commercials for medication and weight loss program bombard us. They become health conscious, a little late in life. Now they go to the other extreme. They become de-toxication, cleansing, health food freak and try to go back to the basics. They buy expensive bike for exercise. They get on treadmill to walk on. They talk about camping, hiking, and getting back to nature. They rediscover birds, animals, nature, solitude that was part of their simple life to start with. In summary, we leave our simple life to collect wealth so that we can get back to the life we once had.

Moderation, common sense is the key. Too little food will starve you, too much will make you obese. Too much hard life, too many germs, and too little food will kill you. Too much food with too much sitting around will kill you too. Germ free environment will not develop your immune system, because your body does not need to prepare for foreign invaders. Vaccines are a small dose of disease introduced to your body so that it recognizes these intruders and become prepared for such intruders in the future. Too much germ will kill you too by overpowering your immune system. Everything has a limit. In predator free lands when predators were first introduced by humans, the native species had no way of knowing the predatory behavior of these alien species. The native species got wiped out. So, we need moderation in everything – good or bad, so that we sharpen our survival skill and live a long, healthy life using the lessons of the past and the present.

There is so much truth in the old Greek saying, “It is not good for all our wishes to be fulfilled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest.”