Don’t Be a Swinger if You Want to Live a Good Life

 “Truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in an emergent synthesis which reconciles the two.”— Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

If you’ve ever sworn off sugar entirely—then found yourself staring at an empty box of donuts—you’ve lived a little Hegel.

Human beings have a curious rhythm: we seem to swing like the pendulum on a clock. From strict diets to indulgent binges, from overwork to burnout, from naive optimism to bitter disillusionment. We lurch from one extreme to another as if balance were too dull to hold our attention.

Philosopher Georg Hegel saw this long before the age of social media and lifestyle extremes. He noticed that life itself moves through a pattern he called the dialectic: a thesis (one idea or way of being) naturally collides with its antithesis (its opposite). Out of that tension can come a synthesis—a wiser way that holds truth from both sides.

But in daily life, we rarely pause for synthesis. We just swing.

Why is it that we swing?

Psychologists and sociologists tell us that this pendulum motion is part of both individual and social growth. Children think in simple contrasts—good/bad, right/wrong. As we mature, we learn nuance. Yet when we feel threatened or stressed, our brains crave simplicity.

“If I just cut out all carbs…”“If we just elect my candidate…”“If I just quit everything…”

Extremes feel clean and decisive. But like sugar highs, they don’t last.

Groups and cultures swing, too. Political, religious, and social movements often begin as beautiful corrections to injustice. But over time, without reflection, the correction over-corrects. We see-saw endlessly between control and chaos, tradition and rebellion, self-sacrifice and self-absorption.

Hegel would probably sigh and say, “The dialectic continues.” The pendulum keeps swinging.

Let me introduce the “U-Curve of Good Things.” It might help us.

Modern science has discovered what the philosophers intuited: almost everything good follows an inverted U-curve. Too little of a good thing is harmful—but so is too much.

A little stress sharpens us; chronic stress burns us out. A little solitude restores us; too much breeds loneliness. A glass of wine may soothe; a bottle numbs.

This same U-shaped truth appears in research on happiness. Too little pleasure or purpose leaves us anxious or apathetic. But chasing too much pleasure—too much excitement, wealth, or control—actually makes us less happy. Happiness hums most clearly in the golden mean, that sweet middle ground where effort meets ease, ambition partners with gratitude, and giving and receiving flow together.

Even neuroscience supports it. When dopamine (motivation), serotonin (contentment), and oxytocin (connection) work in balance, we feel peaceful, not manic; engaged, not exhausted. In other words, happiness hums best in harmony, not in excess.

Happiness and good life researchers point us toward that Golden Mean that Aristotle touted years ago in Nicomachean Ethics.  The idea is to choose moderation, the middle ground between extremes of deficiency and excess. Aristotle believed that every virtue is a middle ground between those two vices of excess or deficiency.  These days good life coaches talk about the Goldilocks theory – a preference for something that is “just right.” Not too much or too little.

For example, to connect Aristotle and Goldilocks (remember the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears?), patience is the golden middle way between impulsiveness and apathy. Honesty is the golden mean between brutal bluntness and deceitful flattery. Open-mindedness is the golden mean between gullibility and closed-mindedness. Assertiveness is the balance between passivity and aggression. 

To have a good life according to Aristotle and happiness researchers we need to figure out a Goldilocks approach to life or to life with moderation, perhaps a Hegelian synthesis, and the Golden Mean.

John’s parents were great at this.  They preached moderation.  At the time, their lives seemed rather dull to this young girl from Tennessee. No extremes, no conflict excitement - no yelling and screaming? The South, I’ve told many of my friends, popularized the motto, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”  You can never have too much. When my parents visited, they commented on how humble the homes in Cashmere were in contrast to Southern homes - that's changed some lately particularly with big tech money.

I’ve since learned to see the beauty of moderation in many things.

John definitely continues preaching that message of moderation rather than wild swings.  Now I realize that some people have special situations where they may need to be more radical in what they eat for example. Nevertheless, there are many other opportunities for living a life using the Golden Mean or Goldilocks theory.

For example, here is a biggie. This morning in our Saturday SAIL (stay active and independent for life) class and yoga afterwards, one of the participants was saying how the class was saving her life.  She choked up as she gave her appreciation for the class. 

Then she mentioned that much of her life is about care-giving… which was great, but she had neglected herself.  Several nodded knowingly.  She wanted to re-balance her life for herself and for the others she cared about.

How do we stop swinging so wildly? Here are a few ideas.

1. Notice the rhythm. When you hear yourself say never or always, you’re probably standing on an edge.

2. Hold opposites with curiosity. Ask what value might lie in both sides—courage and caution, structure and freedom, self-care and service.

3. Experiment toward the middle. The middle isn’t dull; it’s dynamic. Like a sailor adjusting sails, you learn through small corrections where the steady wind of well-being lives.

Do you remember that saying I’ve mentioned before... that much of what goes wrong with us is that we’re too tightly or too loosely strung?

The analogy comes from violin makers: if the string is too tight, it will snap. Too loose, and it won’t sing. The secret is in the just right tension.

Psychologists see the same truth in people. When we’re too tightly strung, we live in chronic overdrive. We strive for perfection, control, and certainty. Our sympathetic nervous system—the body’s stress accelerator—never lets us rest. Eventually, we fray. Anxiety, irritability, and burnout follow.

When we’re too loosely strung, life loses shape. Motivation fades. We drift without purpose or discipline. Our days fill with distractions that never satisfy. The music of meaning goes quiet.

But when we find that just right balance of tension—alert but not anxious, relaxed but not resigned—we hum like an instrument in tune. Neuroscientists call it optimal arousal, the sweet spot where energy and calm coexist. It’s what athletes call flow or being "in the zone", what artists call rhythm, what mystics call peace that passes understanding.

Now here is what popped up for me as I was writing this.  Have you seen that movie Chocolat? Johnny Depp is in it.

There’s a moment in the movie that says it all. A small French village lives under the tight moral rule of a rigid mayor who believes goodness comes only through denial (He also stirs up folks to be afraid and mean to the gypsies who are having way too much fun). When, oh no, a strange, joyful woman opens a chocolate shop during Lent, he sees her as a threat to virtue itself.

But as the story unfolds, the townspeople—deprived of sweetness and spontaneity—begin to come alive again. They rediscover joy, connection, and laughter (along with the chocolate).

The mayor, holding himself above pleasure and humanity, finally breaks. They discover him in the shop window, drunk not on wine but on chocolate.

It’s both tragic and tender—because in that moment, he tastes grace. He learns that goodness is not found in rejection of pleasure, nor in indulgence, but in the tender, balanced place where joy and restraint meet.

We humans are a bit like that mayor. We swing between rigidity and rebellion, denial and excess. The trick, as Chocolat and Hegel and happiness research all remind us, is to learn to savor without surrendering—to live fully, but not foolishly.

Maybe that’s why the Nordic countries so often top the world’s happiness lists. It’s not that life there is free from hardship—long winters, high taxes, and endless gray skies don’t sound like a recipe for joy. Yet somehow, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden have learned to live in the mean.

They prize equality over excess, simplicity over status, community over constant competition. They build policies around enough—enough work, enough rest, enough connection. Their philosophy of lagom—“not too little, not too much”—is a cousin to Aristotle’s golden mean and Hegel’s synthesis, a social version of that U-curve of good things.

They seem to know that happiness doesn’t roar from the extremes. It hums quietly in warm light, shared meals, outdoor walks, and trust that the community will hold you if you fall. I’m quite sure all is not perfect there, but it’s something to consider. 

I knew a happiness researcher who did some studies on the Nordic countries.  At the time we were talking, a few years ago, he asked me to keep the secret quiet until the research was published, but basically the research showed that the Nordics were different from Americans when it came to happiness.

Americans sought out the big swings, the big jolts of happiness and even the tragic drama of suffering…dopamine and adrenaline junkies.  We seemed bi-polar.

The Nordics concept of happiness was quite different.  A calm sort of satisfaction with life. Contentment. I’m sure the Nordics have some problems, still something to think about.

Maybe as we age, if we haven’t gotten it earlier, and yet have lived to keep learning, we start to get the idea more.

Perhaps our elders, and we who are edging closer to the opportunity for “ripening”—those who have seen the tides come in and go out a hundred times—often become the calm centers in our swinging world. They have practiced enough, lost enough, and loved enough to know that joy doesn’t require drama and meaning doesn’t require excess.

My friend, who just turned ninety-two, told me recently, “Honey, I used to think happiness meant excitement. Now I know it’s just a good cup of tea, a bit of sunshine, and someone to share it with.”

Maybe wisdom itself is the final synthesis Hegel spoke of—the place beyond the swing, where experience and humility blend into a quiet knowing: moderation in all things, even moderation itself.

How might we journey together to the Good Life by becoming more aware of the U-Curve of Good things and the Golden Mean?

Sidebar: The U-Curve of Good Things

Consider eating, technology, work, play, care-giving, stress, money, adventure, socializing...the many domains of life, where are we in the balance of things?

May we find the quiet joy that hums between the highs and lows—the contentment that does not shout but sings softly beneath your days.

May we learn to love the middle way—where our striving and our surrender meet and shake hands, where we work hard and rest well, where we care deeply but do not carry the world alone.

May our hearts hold courage without hardness, and tenderness without losing strength.

And when life tempts us toward “all” or “nothing,” may we remember: happiness rarely dances on the radical left or right of life. It hums in the golden mean…

And long before Aristotle praised the golden mean, the Hebrew sages prayed, ‘Give me neither poverty nor riches, but only my daily bread.’ (The sentiment is captured in Proverbs. It's a wisdom older than philosophy: joy dwells where there is enough.”

And here are the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians: "I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need."

Paul echoes the same spiritual law: happiness hums in balance, not abundance. The “secret” of contentment is inner equilibrium — being loosely enough strung to trust, tightly enough strung to care.

Here's a surprising one from Ecclesiastes “Do not be overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise; why should you destroy yourself? Do not be too wicked, and do not be a fool; why should you die before your time?It is good that you should take hold of the one, without letting go of the other; for the one who fears God shall succeed with both.”

It's a warning against moral extremism. It’s as if Scripture itself says: don’t tighten the strings too much. Even goodness, when forced or self-righteous, can break the spirit.

And here's the Yerkes-Dodson Law which also captures the idea in relationship to performance.

And lastly, sorry, I am adding that as an afterward because the research just came to my attention (was in the latest Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). It seems that the brains of people who are on the extremes either left or right, despite ideological differences, look similar in neural processing. They both show more easily activated emotional centers, more intense emotional arousal, more threat and fear activation, less ability to understand others' perspective (at least when it comes to politics which is what was investigated. This research was also limited to the United States.). Galvanic skin conductance was also measured to detect emotional arousal as well as eye-tracking. Investigation continues about how to alter their extreme reactions to look more like moderates to decrease political polarization. This look alike phenomenon of people who have totally different ideologies but similar biophysical responses to how they process political issues (in this case when they are being debated) is called the horseshoe theory of politics.