Many people live in an extreme existence of consumption, indulgence, involvement, focus and occupation when actually in nature, such extremes are rare or exist in either brief or minute levels. I shall attempt to explain. Try to imagine that everything—and I mean everything—can be measured by an arbitrary scale of between 1 and 100. This means every sub-atomic particle of Hydrogen to Ununoctium to all celestial bodies of asteroids to massive suns and all human and non-human areas of life could be measured on this scale. For instance with regards to people there are nearly an endless array of human qualities which can be easily measured that nearly every person shares. Take the question of how smart, ignorant, beautiful, creative, talented, nimble, sharp, angry, narcissistic, selfless, fat, fit, tall, short, dominant or pugnacious one is. All of these traits can actually be measured. For argument’s sake let’s attempt to measure beauty, since this is a rather subjective topic for most, and set parameters of measuring only physical beauty and we’ll choose women over men. The basis of measuring beauty for our scale will rely on the results of various scientific studies proving that there are12 to 15 beauty points recognized worldwide. Now imagine every single woman on the planet lined up shoulder to shoulder with the most out of shape, hideous looking women at the start representing a 1 on the scale and gradually increasing up the scale according to her physical attributes until one long continuous line has formed with the most beautiful women representing 100 on the scale in this line of millions at the end. So for all of the women reading this, whether you consider yourself hideous or gorgeous, it may be fair to say that there is a good chance that you wouldn’t place yourself at either number one nor one-hundred of this arbitrary scale meaning you probably aren’t the ugliest nor most beautiful woman on the planet. There are most likely thousands of women more or less beautiful than you worldwide. Agreed? So then the question becomes where on the scale would you be with regards to this single human attribute we are measuring called beauty? If I were rate myself on this scale, I would humbly say that I am probably in the 75-85% of the entire world’s male population for looks and physique, give or take a few percentage points, which interprets into me being higher on the scale than most and less in shape and attractive than others which equates to thousands of men. Another example would be my low tolerance for stupidity. Using the same scale and converting the parameters from beauty to tolerance levels, I would say that I am probably around a low 30-40% on the scale which would indicate an area I could improve upon in being more tolerant. Here is the point: it would seem that extremism is rare throughout the Universal Consciousness of Life. The universe harbors many a strange thing most of which are in harmonic balance. Take black holes which are an extreme presence in the cosmos, yet number so few relative to the amount of celestial objects in the sky. Another extreme is Uranium, one of the most deadly and longest living elements on earth yet exists in tiny quantities in relation to all the elements on the planet. And then there is that aberrant human cell lasting but only for a short while until it kills the organism hosting it called cancer. And the list goes on and on and on. So the question is why are people so extreme in their ways when nature clearly is not? I used to be an extremist addicted to so many things, embracing black or white thinking, engaged in all or nothing behaviors while defending a polarized belief system. Then I figured out that life doesn’t operate the way I thought. I was out of kilter with the Universal Consciousness of Life. I was swimming upstream like the salmon in Alaska while the life water traveled against me. Now I live within what I call The 80/20 Principal in nearly all areas of life, rarely striving any higher than 80% in areas of accomplishment or allowing myself to drop lower than 20% in areas in need of improvement on the imaginary scale. Believe it or not, this actually works. Of course the exception to this principal would be in focusing on a particular project or doing a job, etc., however, I do not need to be The Best for best’s sake. Why? Because the motivation for being the best for best sake, I found, usually rested upon my own insecurities and invalidation with a very short lived feeling of achievement in being number one which was a consequence of extremism and being out of sync with the Universal Consciousness of Life. These pseudo-accomplishments were nothing more than fear based egocentrisms. I encourage everyone reading this to ask yourself where on the scales of life you find yourself within the many areas which can be measured and to examine whether you’re thinking in balance or in the extremist mindset and if so ask yourself if this works for you; are you getting the results you wish with this mindset? Does extreme thinking bring peace and happiness or chaos and despair? Just be brutally honest with yourself and always survey truth. Food for thought.