The Golden Mean, Batman and Bezos

In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethic he established “The Golden Mean”. This concept is that virtue is the balance in between two vices. The virtue of love might be the balance between obsession, which is excess, and indifference. The virtue of courage could be the balance between recklessness and cowardice.

This might be a modification of our intuitive notion of virtue which, I at least, naturally tend to think of as a linear continuum like on a scale of one to ten. Ten being the most “good” and one being very bad. You are “10” good, gold star for you! Aristotle’s notion of virtue is much more difficult to get right because you can overdo it. It’s much harder to be virtuous according to Aristotle than stepping on the gas pedal of goodness and not letting up.

I think our modern world has proven Aristotle to be very wise indeed. As I see it, our world is rife with imbalance which creates harm or evil. We live in a world of excess. Too much food, too much alcohol, too many drugs, too many Netflix options, too much wealth even. Anything I want I can have delivered to me with the click of a button. Thanks Bezos. Do I want entertainment? I pull out my iPhone and I have the world’s catalogue of the most entertaining things imaginable. Do I want sex? Oh boy. I don’t even want to go there. This is a blog for my kids after all. As Bo Burnham wisely put it, “Welcome to the internet! Can I interest you in anything and everything, all of the time.”

This is a dystopia of riches which has created easy access to imbalance. One of the greatest risk factors to addiction (of any kind) is access.

So how do we deal with the world of seemingly infinite excess. How can you maintain virtuous balance in any domain in an environment which pushes the drug of excessive consumption constantly?

I don’t know. I haven’t gotten it right yet. There’s a lot I have out of balance right now. I don’t have to look further than my bathroom scale to know this is true. In spite of my failures, I still have hope, both for myself and for you. So here are some things that I have learned along the way of struggling towards balance.

1.        Put your phone down and away from you. You, like me, are probably not mentally disciplined enough to refrain from picking up your phone when it buzzes. When I plug my phone in across the room from me when I work, I am way more productive. It’s kind of embarrassing. One time I was so fed up with myself I just threw my phone across the room and left it when it landed. My secretary walked in and laughed that my phone was just sitting on the floor. Away from me. Where I can’t doom scroll.

2.        Create habits of discipline and stack those habits on top of each other. Creating habits in your life, like exercising, or a habit of reading your Bible, or going for a walk and listening to an audiobook (a personal favorite), allows you to makes decisions which bake in balance to your life. When you’ve added one good habit, stack another on top of it, “when I go for a walk I also do 10 push ups” for example. (I used to do this one but I “got out of the habit…” see I told you I wasn’t good at this yet). This is an ever-expanding field of “betterness” which I have not yet exhausted and I doubt I ever will.

3.        Practice mindfulness. As I’ve said before “mindfulness” is the practice of paying attention to your life. Observe what you’re spending time on. Notice it. Then you can recognize when things are out of balance and make corrections. Aristotle might say, “Examine your life.” It makes it worth living.

4.        Give yourself grace when you inevitably fail. Shame and beating yourself up is just not helpful in this arena. In fact, it often makes things much worse and creates cycles of addiction. So, if you fall off the wagon, recognize it. Pick yourself up and get back on. That’s the ticket to success. Getting back on. And grace is the tool you use to do it. “Why do we fall, Master Wayne? So we can learn pick ourselves up.” (Hey if it works for Batman, it can work for you!) Victory comes through keeping at it. Even if you suck at something. Don’t let shame and guilt trick you into giving up. Give yourself grace for your failures and continue on.

5.        Have a proper aim. Having a proper aim allows you to pick your goals and disciplines appropriately. For me that aim is Jesus. Live like Him. Choose to love like him. Give Grace like him. And sacrifice like him.

If you can master these things, you’ll be doing better than me. You’ll be living a life full balance. One that would impress Aristotle himself.