Issue231 适度与专注 【求拍，有拍必回】

爱上千年的猫UID: 2476232

Issue231: 549 words  45 minutes
'Moderation in all things' is ill-considered advice. Rather, one should say, 'Moderation in most things,' since many areas of human concern require or at least profit from intense focus.

There arise many debates on whether the old wisdom 'moderation in all things' still applies to the modern society. From my observation, moderation is quite needed in most areas while in some specific fields, like sports and arts, success can be achieved only when moderation is abandoned.

If an old adage can survive through centuries, there must be some providential evidence in support. Consider the flowers or grass we plant in our garden. Moderate fertilizations, sunshine and water is required for the plants to survive and grow. If too much or too little of these are engaged, it will do more harm than help to keep those plants prosper as we initially wish. They would even die of over-supply of fertilizations, of over-bathing in the sunshine, or of over-soak in the water. In short, only when these factors are supplied in proper amount and remain in a natural balance, plants can survive and keep on prospering.

The same applies to the education. Providing students in various stages with moderate levels of education is necessary to help improve the students' ability in every aspect. Too much compulsory study programs will kill the young pupils' interests in learning, making it harder for them to accept further education. Or, in the contrary, if the students can not get access to sufficient knowledge and skills in certain ages, they will be more likely to be left behind their peers in this rapid-developing world. Therefore, a moderate age-based grade system is indispensible for students in different ages to receive appropriate standard of knowledge. Only with such kind of moderation can we expect the society's future will be ensured by those proper educated people.

Although it seems true that most areas call for moderation, there exist certain fields that require intense focus. An apt illustration comes to mind first is the sports events like the Olympic Games. The Olympic Motto is "higher, faster, stronger", which obviously stands in the opposite direction of moderation. Imagine if all participants in the Olympic Games simply stick to moderation, all exciting moments we had before would be replaced by boring processes. And the audience will fail to perceive the spirit of pursuing a better oneself. That is to say, in the fields of sports, only intense focus leads to success.

Fashion designers demonstrate the significance of intense focus even deeper. A designer who holds on to moderation will turn out to be an mediocrity for he has not give the audience impression deep enough to feel the inner emotion of himself. Take a quick view at the fashions; it is not difficult to find that only those designs full of intense focus and emotion can enable us to remember them and to love them. The more the designer devotes his focus, the more the audience would perceive and appreciate. Moderation can not even survive in the industry of fashion.

In sum, most areas in our life do need moderation for over- or under-standard actions will break balance and result in failures. However, we should not generalize certain fields, like sports events and fashion design, into this conclusion. Such fields call for a great focus rather than moderation to achieve success. And moderation will even cause greater loss and failure in these fields.