“And indeed the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the happiness of many, but such as I found it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than commonly grave countenance before the public.
Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life.” - Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
If you haven’t read that short story, you must. And you must because what Dr. Jekyll describes above is what you and I live with on the daily - a duplicity of life.
A war of good vs evil, indulging vs temperance, justice vs self-preservation, Coke vs Pepsi.
Don’t allow the bi-polarity of life to run you from one end of the spectrum to the other. No. Rather, seek balance - find the middle way.
Imagine how the story for Dr. Jekyll might have ended if only he sought balance. It likely wouldn’t be the horrific and thrilling story that it’s become. Then again, life (in the aggregate) is rarely that.
