Good times can pull you off course too

The same swelling happens away from the job, and it's easier to miss there. A kid's team takes the championship and a parent turns insufferable in the bleachers. A windfall lands — a tax return, a good sale, an inheritance — and the weekend balloons into spending that doesn't fit the life. A milestone party tips into the third round that wrecks tomorrow. We brace for hard times to knock us off balance. Good times do it more quietly, and we let them, because they feel like a reward we've got coming.

Seneca didn't carve out an exception for the pleasant stretches. "True wisdom consists in not departing from nature and in moulding our conduct according to her laws" (Of a Happy Life III, Stewart). Not departing — in the lean season or the flush one. The celebration is fine. The drift isn't: the slow slide where a good run becomes an excuse to stop being the person you actually want to be.

Temperance was always the whole-life virtue, work and home alike. The sense of proportion you steer by at work is the same sense you steer by here. Enjoy the good time fully. Just don't let it carry you somewhere you wouldn't have chosen sober.

A good day is a fine reason to celebrate. It's a poor reason to lose yourself.