How do I know

I read and hope and dream.  I do my best to follow all the good advice and ignore the rest.  I try to seek out my better side and encourage it to grow while sublimating the darker one, but life is filled with light and shadow and both add something to the whole picture.

I see so many people living life by elimination.  They consume everything until it becomes too painful, or begins to poison them, or consume them, then sometimes they back off and do something different.  And sometimes they learn to eliminate things sooner and sometimes they become afraid to even try things at all.

I see people pick and choose so carefully that they never really get a good mouthful of anything.  Nibbling at success and failure with such tiny timid bites that they can't really tell the difference. 

And I wonder, how do I tell the difference:  between living life with gusto and simply gorging, between sanctified simplicity and terror?