Maxim Monday: Nothing to Excess

I have many people in my life who are passionate, possibly even obsessive, about their work or their hobbies or their loves. I fall into that camp, as well. It’s important to devote the necessary time, energy, focus and love toward any thing we want to excel at – and I don’t mean excel in a sense that there is something to ‘achieve.’ A thriving relationship takes time, effort, and focus. Finishing a challenging and beautiful book might take those things too.

But to balance and refuel passion we need to know when to let up. When to take a breather. We need to counter intensity with some down time. Overworking one muscle group doesn’t lead to increased strength, rather it leads to overburdened and weakened muscles. If we paint all day, every day, exercising other aspects of our creativity could open up new avenues in our work – and prevent burn out. And so on.

I’m pretty obsessive about my family. I love spending time with my husband and kids. I’m a homebody. So I sometimes have to ‘force’ myself to go out with out them or make dates with other people (not playdates with kids!). I’m obsessive about the magickal/spiritual life. I have to get myself to read outside of my subject area from time to time.

Nothing to excess. Find balance. Be well-rounded. Does this lead to all things in moderation? Funny, I find ‘all things in moderation’ to be bland, but have no issues with ‘nothing to excess.’ I guess I think to keep everything in moderation, means never getting fired up. Never getting obsessive about something. Never realizing that you’ve forgotten to eat because your book was so good. Or realized you’ve been talking with a fascinating person for 5 hours. Never having one glass of wine too many. I don’t view those things as excess really. A life without passion or intensity doesn’t seem like living to me!