Winter is approaching again, and one of the joys of winters is taking a bath with hot water, isn’t it?
Taking a bath, or a shower, with hot water, however, brings along with it one of the biggest challenges that the human kind has to face on a daily basis – getting the water to the exact temperature level that the body is comfortable with. It’s always either too hot, or too cold.
I, for one, struggle with this problem every day.
If you think about it, there could not be a problem easier than this to solve. You have hot water, and you have cold water, and all you have to do is mix them to get water that is at a temperature that feels good on the body. How hard can that be?
Most things in life are like that.
There is a thin line – a really thin one – that you need to walk, but this thin line is hard to find. You tend to fall on one side of the line or the other. Usually one side is better than the other, but neither beats the middle path.
Let us take a look at two common things, one of which is frowned upon and the other that is highly recommended by the society at large to further emphasise the point.
The first is alcohol. Most people who drink alcohol enjoy it a bit too much, and more often than not end up drinking more than what is good for them. There is a right amount of alcohol that is good for you –physically as well as mentally. But finding that right amount and sticking to it is hard. So, you either end up drinking too much and hurting yourself in the short term and the long term, or you drink too little, or not at all, and end up missing out on all the fun. Here, of the two sides, you are definitely better off being on the side where you miss out on the fun but don’t end up doing something foolish.
The second is studying. It’s a no-brainer that if you want to be good at something you need to study the subject well. But, if you study too much, you are likely to miss out on the other things life has to offer. If you study too little, you will never grasp the subject you wanted to be good at. In this case, however, it might be better to study too much rather than too little.
Even Gautam Buddha preached that following the middle path was the best way to lead one’s life. The path of wisdom, according to him was the path of moderation, “between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification”.
This is the path we must endeavour to find and walk on.
Anyway, this has already become a long-ish post, considering its origins were in the fact that I could not manage to do something as simple as find the right temperature of water to bath with. So, I will leave you now with the wish that you may bath every day, with water at a temperature that you enjoy.
(Image source: Internet)
What do you think?