Excesses and balances
Posted on: May 8, 2012
- In: my life | thoughts
- 2 Comments
“You act as if there’s some virtue in living a long, flavourless life. My excesses will kill me, but they have made my life worth living.”
- Kitchen Confidential, S01E03
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So, Kitchen Confidential is a TV series starring Bradley Cooper as a chef. In this specific episode, his old chef-teacher visits his restaurant and tells BC that he is dying, and he wants BC to cook him the most richest of foods so he will die happy. BC agrees at first, but then his conscience gets the better of him and he decides he’s going to tell his chef-teacher to start eating healthier etc etc. Oh, also BC used to be an alcoholic and druggie and a bunch of stuff and he recently went clean and yea…
Anyway, so when he confronts his chef-teacher about “going clean” and taking better care of himself, the chef-teacher responds with the quote above.
Which got me thinking:
I am a full believer in living life to the full. You only get one life, one lifetime of experiences…and you really never know when your time will be up. So do you go all out, experience it all? Do you stuff your face with all your favorite, maybe-not-so-healthy food, or eat salads everyday? Buy all the gadgets and trinkets your heart desires or save up for a rainy day? Work hard now and save up all your adventures for retirement, or live the adventure now and hope you won’t live too long being a burden on your grown children? Give some extra money to charity, or spend it on life-insurance/medical-aid/etc in case you need it someday?
There’s gotta be a balance somewhere, right? Obviously you can over-do it on both ends. But where exactly is the balance?
For instance, money: I’m really bad at saving up and really good at spending. When i got my first job in high school my parents forced me to save up. Now that I don’t live with my parents anymore, they don’t have any say in my money anymore, so guess who’s in debt. I know that I need to save up for that rainy day and all, but then again, what if the rainy day never comes? What if I walk outside right now, get run over by a car, die…and never get to buy that beautiful pair of boots I saw that I felt I couldn’t afford right now? What if I never get to live in my dream flat because I would rather live in squalor so i can save up for that reasonably priced house I’ll live in someday? What if I never live because…I’ll do it someday…
There’s a saying, “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”. Many people may live that way, but I’ve always said about food, “I’d rather live 50 years and enjoy cheesecake, and chocolate brownies, and wine, than live on celery sticks so I can spend an extra 50 years eating celery sticks.”
“I’m here for a good, not a long, time” – Childish Gambino.
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Thoughts? [i feel like I have written a few many times about this very subject this year...maybe God's telling me this message and, instead of taking it in, I just keep passing it on to others...scary!]
May 9, 2012 at 22:39
great post, i like the celery sticks quote. i do imagine there is somewhat of a balance especially if you factor in the Jesus-following thing – i don’t personally believe the Bible is big on us saving money but it is big on us helping the poor and yet there are occasions of lavish blessing as well and so for me sometimes the splurge [on me, on my wife] helps me get the energy i need for the reaching out to the poor we do on a more daily basis and so both but i think emphasis needs to be made on reaching the least of these – if you ate all the rich treats you would die but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DONT EAT NONE OF THEM… so pick your battles and your treats and your spends and try and listen to God and be led by the Spirit and your conscience within there….
May 9, 2012 at 22:46
Yes. Thanks.