In my corporate salaried days we were frequently directed to strip down our duties and become a “lean, mean, fighting team.” Hogwash even then, more irrelevant as the bloat of recent years traded hours of free time for extravagant boondoggles at the workplace.
The advice was always misguided. Being lean and mean, hungry and anxious, has never been the best condition even for wildlife. You are prone to hasty and stupid decisions focused on the short run rather than any better long-term options.
Of course, “bloated and cheerful” has never been much admired by this society. Which is kind of amazing because, of course, a lot of us are usually very happy and too often bloated _ in body, possessions, or passions. But it is not seen as a goal to strive towards.
The true goal in a sane life, I think, is rather to be optimally conditioned and emotionally balanced. Neither doing nor being too much or too little. That is difficult, the top of a hill from which it is all too easy to descend.
I’m no guru and my particular balance always requires adjustment. Sometimes too lean, sometimes too bloated, taking on or throwing away all the time to maintain equilibrium.
But I admit that in this possessive consumer culture, my house is witness to the problems of stripping down as much as I probably should.
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 