We tend to go through life with an all or nothing mentality, it’s either one extreme or the complete opposite end of the spectrum, it’s black or white. Moderation, compromise, the average, and the fifty shades of grey that spade between the black and white as a foreign concept and sometimes as an unidealistic thing.

The years of everyone getting a participation ribbon are over when I come to sports, friendly competition, and even conflicts there’s a winner and a loser. Coming to a draw at the end of a game sends the crowd and players into rage, you can’t play a simple game with a friend without keeping track of score, – even if its just in your head – and when it comes to disagreements rarely does it end in a compromise someone has to be wrong or surrender while the other triumphs and gets their way.

This concept that the only outcome possible is to have a winner and a loser takes the joy out of the game, -- it only adds pressures and stress – and can negatively affect relationships if the only way to ever end a dispute is that one person gets their way while the other must surrender to unhappiness and silent loathing.

Having a winner and a loser is not the only way we categorize each other; in today's society, we tend to only really call attention to the exceptionally extraordinary or the exceptionally unextraordinary, with the “average” overlooked and unacknowledged. We idolize those who are extremely athletically talented and laugh at the ones that struggle.

The beautiful are drooled and envied over while the people that are less than pleasing to the eye are bullied and usually left on the outskirts of society. The super smart are favored by the professor while those who struggle are told they will go nowhere in life. The mediocre athlete, the “plain janes,” and the C and B students they just exist. The average is not seen as desirable, important, or even laughable at. While it's not like everyone is dying to be at the outcast side of the spectrum, not many are content with being in the overlooked, average category either.

Then there is how we approach life, this is probably the biggest area we struggle in black in white. When it comes to working out we either jump in head first and think we should be working out five days a week for hours on end or that the couch potato lifestyle is the only option. Foods are labeled as either good for you or bad for you. You either follow your diet to the T or if you slip up once the entire day has been ruined and might as well just say f*&k it for the rest of the day as well.

Quitting any bad habit must be done cold turkey until you break down. There is such a thing as moderation. No food is going to make you fat and should send you into weeks of guilt if you have it occasionally, just like having a “superfood” isn’t going to automatically make you look like a model. Working out doesn’t have to be spent in a gym but can be hiking with friends. Giving up unhealthy habits is hard, and most of the time going cold turkey is setting yourself up for failure.

Challenge your brain to not automatically only see two sides to every situation, you’re going to open up your life to so many other options and opportunities that you may not have seen in the black or white. Life is a lot easier when you don’t always have to fight to be the winner, have the pressure to be the best, or in constant restricting of something because it’s so-called bad for you. Practice compromise and moderation in your life, don’t go through life with the either or mentality but see life for all of the options that there could possibly be.