To me they are one and the same, unless you have sworn an oath to something that you shouldn't have, in which case you have put yourself between a rock and a hard place.
A person who understands their own honour knows when to give an oath. They also know when that oath has been broken by the other party and is no longer binding.
Be moderate in all things.
Moderation is the key to balance. Epictetus taught,
“If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.”
Everything in life can be taken to extremes.
There is basically no interest, hobby, or skill on this earth, which someone, somewhere don’t take to the extreme.
While it is not wrong to spend time and effort perfecting whatever you do, you must be careful not to do so at the expense of other important parts of your life.
Taking things to the extreme is the cause of many heartaches and regrets in this life.
A good example of this would be the man who spends all his time focused on his work, at the expense of his family life.
While he may become a gigantic success at work, his family life suffers for it and he may in fact find that he has sacrificed his marriage and his relationship with his children in order to spend so much time becoming a success at his job.
In essence, his life is out of balance, and eventually his unbalanced life will cost him dearly.
Epicurus taught us to,
“Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance.”
Moderation means that you intentionally limit yourself, you don’t go to extremes.
This do not mean that you never go all out and put your entire soul into something at times, but rather that you make sure that you balance these times in your life.
W. Somerset Maugham wrote,
“Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.”
Don’t get into a rut in living your life.
Living your life in the same monotonous way, day after day is not necessarily living a balanced life. In fact, this is dull and boring, and definitely not living life to the fullest.
You have to balance your daily routine with days that you break from routine and enjoy new things.
Albert Einstein stated,
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
A dull, repetitive life is as out of balance as a life that is continually over active.
These are merely two extremes of living life.
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