If we have a diligent character, there is a temptation to strive for the ideal and that is certainly a rewarding pursuit if one adopts a goal of mindful awareness. However, diligence can also be accompanied with a tendency to expect perfection, which can lead to unnecessary disappointment.
The attachment to perfection arises due to a lack of mindfulness of our state of mind. Whatever our task may be whether it is a task in our ordinary daily life or whether it is a meditation exercise, if we are just going through the motions without being aware of what we are doing than we are liable to go down the wrong path.
There is a more comfortable and easy path that does not require us to push ourselves too much but which also ensures that we keep working at a comfortable pace. This path is called the middle way and it arises naturally if we bring our mind to careful awareness of what we’re doing.
To begin and continue our path along the middle way, it is helpful to ensure that regular meditation retreats are part of our lifestyle. This will help us to appreciate a more subtle level of training that is not possible when we are beset by the distractions of every day work and family life. By making meditation a priority in this way, we can keep ourselves on the middle path to happiness as often as possible.