When Epic is the New Typical

What do you do when epic is the new typical?

Here in San Francisco, we are blessed by the fact that every weekend brings another opportunity for an excess of party, dance and joy. The only downside to this nightlife renaissance we are experiencing is that one person couldn’t possibly attend every fabulous party. So, my advice? Don’t even try.

I can honestly say that behaving reasonably never got me anywhere, but as the New Year brings with it a chance for a fresh start, I’m giving some thought to the concept of moderation.

Average folk outside the bubble live their whole lives without experiencing a single day of what we experience every day. We need no excuse to break the chains that bind and let loose, and when we do, we are celebrated for it.

Appreciating rather than abusing the freedom we have is our fitness challenge. Setting limits, or at least acknowledging them, is how we stay healthy and avoid getting messy in the face of limitless dates with decadence and debauchery.

In the race to do it all and have it all, we’re well-conditioned to go the distance, but we need to remember that it’s a marathon and not a sprint.

Let’s support one another when we want to rest up and take a night off, just as much as we do when we encourage each other to bring it hard and heavy. And let’s definitely not fake when we’re not feeling it. There’s no need, because there’s no doubt that we’ll make up for it, and likely sooner rather than later.

San Francisco isn’t for amateurs. Our lifestyle has longevity, and we look, feel and act better for it. It’s not “go big or go home” so much as go big and go happy, then go home, turn around and do it all over again.

My resolution this year is to start understanding that there’s no crime in calling it a night once you realize you’ve gone from being the party to chasing the party.

Why force it? There will always be another party, and when your San Framily is your posse, it’s a given that the next party – and the next one and even the next one – will raise the bar yet higher. That’s something that’s worth toasting every weekend of the year – within moderation.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 6th, 2012 at 12:00 pm. It is filed under Articles, Bring It! and tagged with harm-reduction, moderation, San Framily. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.