CVII. For Practicality's Sake -

Yes, everything in moderation is something to live by.

One may even say it’s a truism; Whether or not you follow a moderate approach, the energy of the world somehow forces a balance either by making a habit impossible to carry out, a product unavailable, or even by means of complete elimination: If you ingest too much of a noxious substance, you can bet that at some point, no amount of stomach pumping will have any efficacy.
It is practical to live moderately, but it is not always a necessary precaution to take. Unless what is not in moderation is toxic and potentially fatal, there is a good chance that all will be set right by natural forces beyond out control.

Why is it that acting practically is inevitably more appealing than acting according to one’s desires and wishes, or, perhaps even dreams, in the event that the aforementioned are not practical?

Surely acting practically reduces risk which is an inherently a skull-and-bones type of entity.

Residing in a place that is all at once new and familiar is a form of moderation.

I speak about moving away from all I know, in excess. The lifestyle in that part of the world, away from Lotto tickets and wholesale stores, is more in tune with a life I want to lead. I am still relatively young to settle down somewhere else and be a part of that fabric of society - I think.

The listeners urge me to stay here. Make it here first and then uproot wherever you so choose, they say. The persons who have migrated to the United States label reverse migration, away from the United States, as a cop-out of sorts.

Yet, what kind of logic suggests that my moving from the only place I have ever known is the equivalent to a cop-out? Don’t you think it is a cop-out to have left a country with far more history than the United States, to have left a country that you can actually call your own, no questions asked, to come over here and settle for something you call “a better life” than the one you had? Why couldn’t you break through barriers in your country instead of being a cop-out?

For practicality’s sake: To avoid arguments based off the hypothetical, I have for the first time, begun to dismiss my desire to lead a life in a place where others supposedly do not “live to work”.
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It is late afternoon, around 3 PM. I have just finished eating an inordinate amount of calories because when sitting in a restaurant with a party of 2 other than yourself, it is difficult to disguise having eaten your share of the food when in fact you have only eaten less than half a portion size.

Submitting myself to such an outright lack of discipline for the sake of being practical, I feel less than vibrant on a day when all outdoor photos taken by my phone are vivid and void of explicit pixels.
To add to this less than ideal feeling, the very people for whom I forsook my desires, themselves did not eat.
Let the arguments ensue, and so they did.
Willfully without a car and the only way to not let a beautiful day and my once beautiful figure, go to waste, I decided to get away and seek my New Yorker alone time by walking.

I didn’t want to be practical and achieve my need for fresh air by sitting outside of my house, stomach filled with chickpeas, kebab, and papad.
I didn’t want to be practical and walk around my neighborhood for the ten thousandth time either.

So I set out in the direction opposite from my neighborhood to make the 1 hour walk to a large bookstore that comes fairly close to my beloved university library.
I was made to walk with more than a couple of pounds of food in my gut, bulky in my long wool coat and boots made for walking the short blocks of Manhattan.
I walked from home, uphill, under 2 overpasses, along the service roads adjacent to highways as well as the full length of a Queens park.

This walk wasn’t practical for someone who is susceptible to vomiting at any given second.

The walk was not practical. I can feel the blisters under my feet and for someone who needs hours of aerobics to work off these newly acquired calories, my stomach has decided to become aerobatic and perform flips as it were.

Yet this walk was necessary. I managed to escape the fight club scene and lose some calories, take to writing, and enjoy the atmosphere of a place that is all at once both familiar and new.
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For practicality’s sake, I don’t take to social media for good news.
When my Facebook friends put up a photo of a gift someone gave to them because they supposedly did something good or put up a compliment someone told them, I swear I can suddenly feel the ground shift beneath me as the world turns on it’s axis in an attempt to catalyze the karmic cycle. There goes their special treatment.

Studies have shown that people tend to only post the good, the great, and the even better on their social media platforms.

If I had a nickel fifty-dollar bill, or my alma mater’s founder, a Benjamin, for every academic and professional triumph I’ve had and then had transplanted to social media, I’d set up home on Park Avenue right now.

For practicality’s sake, I use social media to be social. I share links and interesting anecdotes. I don’t list the newest addition to my resume. After all, that’s what LinkedIn is for.
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For practicality’s sake, many a time, one’s desires, dreams, and duties that benefit a larger realm than just their own personal life, is sacrificed.But if being practical means doing things in moderation, one should live practically so long as they are also carrying out and experiencing the impractical - those long-term, fiscally risky measures..

For practicality’s sake, higher education takes precedence over a quick pay check signed within a Wall Street edifice.

For practicality’s sake, higher education ensures a steadily growing income in the future.

For practicality’s sake in the above 2 instances, the end goal relates to money.

See the inherent balance? I sure do.