Break Fast for Dinner

I’m really not into social media. While this may seem hypocritical to say on a blog, which could be considered a form of social media, I have to say I’m really just not into it. I’ve willfully remained friendless, I don’t poke and I happily neglect the cultivation of my online professional network. I’ll save a rant on the evils of Facebook for another time but tonight I’ll moderate my position some by offering a status update.

Ben is… digesting a burger and fries.

I only foray into this inane self revelatory practice because it is relevant to the inception of this resolution blog and has larger implications than the slight discomfort I am currently experiencing. In my inauguralpost I alluded to my 2011 resolution of abstinence from America’s favorite culinary pastime – eating hamburgers and french-fries.

In that same post I expressed my desire to step up my game with a resolution by addition rather than subtraction. My initial reason for my desire to append rather than redact was rooted in a desire to make more use of my time and to be productive. Yet today, 20 days farther into what was then only a blurred future, the present that has developed has brought into focus my motivation for addition rather than subtraction.  I desire to live a life of moderation.

Moderation may seem like an underwhelming goal but I’m coming to realize that it is one of the biggest challenges anyone can face.  Moderation is a land that hovers between pleasure and pain, mania and melancholy, burgers and broccoli.  Habits are easily formed and, given a little time and will, easily broken, but to consistently indulge to a point of satisfaction without stepping over the line seems nearly impossible.

I quickly began to see my lack of moderation in the time I spent writing, and thinking about writing, in the first few weeks of this blog.  Loss of sleep, over shifting of priorities, hyper exertion of time and energy, all resulted from an excessive emphasis on the resolution.

Don’t get me wrong I have gained a lot from the discipline of writing and rediscovered the joy it can produce in my life.  I plan to continue writing daily and posting to the blog but if that is going to happen I will have to continually seek after a balance, a moderation, on this journey I have embarked on.

As for the burger? Tonight’s burger and fries broke a 13 month fast and mark the symbolic end of a tyrannical reign of excessive abstinence.  Tonight’s burger reminded me that I can live a revolutionary life, not of lofty ideals, extreme limitations or glut, but of consistent and healthy variety across all areas of my life. And it was good too.