How to Use Your Life Without Burning It Down

I’ll be honest. I don’t really understand people who are extreme about everything.

The only thing I’m intense about in life is this: I don’t want to get to the end of my life and realize I wasted it. That’s it. That’s the obsession. Beyond that, I’m pretty suspicious of extremes.

I don’t get people who are at church seven days a week and somehow still unbearable to be around. And just to be clear, I’m not saying your commitment to God shouldn’t influence everything you do. If you’re a religious person, it should. What I am saying is that it doesn’t mean you have to talk about God 24/7, live inside a church building, or only do things that have a spiritual label slapped on them.

I also don’t get people who wake up every day furious about politics like it’s their full-time job. I love cars, but if your entire identity and calendar revolve around cars…and it’s not even your business…that feels off. Fun? Sure. Central organizing principle of your life? Weird.

All of these things have a place. None of them deserve to own you.

What I’ve noticed is that when people go extreme in one area, everything else starts to rot. Relationships suffer. Judgment gets cloudy. Self-awareness disappears. And somehow they convince themselves this is virtue or passion or commitment.

What I do believe in is one acceptable extreme: the desire to get the most out of yourself. To actually use your life. To develop your gifts. To finish strong and be able to say, “Yeah, I didn’t waste that.”

The ancient Greeks were on the same page. The whole point of the myth of Icarus wasn’t “don’t dream big.” It was don’t fly so high you burn up or so low you drown. Stay in the middle. What they called the Golden Mean, later articulated by Aristotle.

Moderation doesn’t mean mediocre. It doesn’t mean half-assed. It means balanced. Reasonable. Integrated. It means no single appetite, interest, or obsession gets to hijack your entire life.

Be intense about becoming who you’re capable of becoming. Be moderate about almost everything else.

Be intense about becoming who you’re capable of becoming. Be moderate about almost everything else.