Walking The Line
One way that we rob ourselves of meaningful experiences each day is by trying to constantly walk a perfect line. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves each day to strike the perfect balance between two competing desires or interests we have that seem to be on opposite ends of the spectrum.
Things like walking the line between work and play, healthy and unhealthy, and responsible and irresponsible. In this episode I explain how this kind of mindset can be a total pitfall and offer three ways you can start to shift your perception towards a place where you’re aware of what’s happening throughout your day without judgment.
Episode Transcription
Intro:
One way that we rob ourselves of meaningful experiences each day is by trying to constantly walk a perfect line. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves each day to strike the perfect balance between two competing desires or interests we have that seem to be on opposite ends of the spectrum.
Things like walking the line between work and play, healthy and unhealthy, and responsible and irresponsible.
In this episode I explain how this kind of mindset can be a total pitfall and offer three ways you can start to shift your perception towards a place where you’re aware of what’s happening throughout your day without judgment.
Main:
I’d like to start with a story. So I’m from Pennsylvania originally and moved out to California to go to law school in 2007, and I eventually moved to San Francisco in 2011 and was lucky enough to get a great apartment in Cow Hollow which is a really beautiful neighborhood in San Francisco and it turns out I ended up living in that same apartment for almost ten years.
And today I’m taping this episode in that apartment, on the last day that I’ll be in it because I decided to move and today is actually moving day. I decided after living here for almost ten years that I wanted to take advantage of what I saw as an opportunity to go to experience living in some remote places so I can get a change of scenery and really dig into my work and my writing.
Im very excited about this move, and I was having a conversation recently with a friend of mine named Anna and we were talking about the idea of walking the line between what it means to have the stability of being stationary in a place like San Francisco and being part of a community, but also having the ability to experience the freedom and adventure that comes with being someone who changes up their environment and surroundings every now and then.
And it got me thinking about whether I would miss being stationary and whether I would be able to strike the perfect balance and walk the line between these two things.
And as we were talking about this idea of walking the line, it got me thinking about how “We are constantly trying to walk the perfect line” all the time.
And what I mean by that is, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves each day to strike the perfect balance between two competing desires or interests that we have that seem to be on opposite ends of the spectrum.
We try to walk the line between work and play.
The line between Eating healthy and treating ourselves to foods that might not be the best for us.
The line between always being responsible and letting ourselves do things that could be considered irresponsible.
Or the line between planning ahead vs. being spontaneous, and a whole bunch of other dualities that exist in our day.
And when we try to walk the line and balance what seem to be competing interests all day long, a few things happen:
First, by focusing on trying to walk a perfect line and strike the perfect balance, we lose sight of what it means to be in the moment and experience what is happening right now. There are great things that are happening each day but we run the risk of overlooking them when we become stuck on constantly evaluating whether we’re walking the line.
In other words, we constantly are trying to bring ourselves back to the center instead of just taking a moment to experience what’s happening right now.
One example for me personally where I experience this is sometimes when I find a pocket of time in my workday where I’m having fun or I take a longer break then I thought, I start to sort of scold myself because I feel like it’s work time and I need to head back more towards a middle ground and be more responsible and get back to work.
I catch myself not allowing myself to experience fun or appreciation for something because I have this perception that in the middle of my workday, I should be focusing on work and need to do a better job of heading back toward the center.
Second when we’re focused on the line we start to pass judgment on ourselves about how well we’re doing walking that line.
We start to ask questions like: should I be doing less of this one thing and more of something else? Am I working too hard or do I deserve a break? Do I need to plan this out or can I be spontaneous? And we start to put pressure on ourselves to answer these questions, and when we can’t come up with the “RIGHT” answer, we beat up on ourselves.
Third, when we try to walk the line we get caught up in thinking about how other people are thinking about us, and whether THEY think we’re doing a good enough job walking the line. That includes colleagues, clients, bosses, family members, and so we put that additional pressure on ourselves.
But here’s why this kind of walk the line mindset is total pitfall for us:
We apply all of this pressure to figure out how to do it, but the reality is that “We rarely experience what it’s like to walk that perfect line, and even when we do experience it that moment of “perfection” only lasts so long.
The line starts to become more like a tight rope and we become preoccupied with whether we’re doing it right.
And if you think about how life works, we’re always in this constant state of shifting back and forth between being on one side of the line or the other side.
And so if we evaluate how things are going based on whether we’re walking that line perfectly, most days are going to be miserable for us.
So here’s what I want to propose to you - instead of moving through your day thinking about how to walk the line perfectly, I want you to Consider how you might shift your mindset toward developing a moment to moment, judgment-free awareness that allows you to recognize when you’re getting caught up in trying to walk the line.
In other words, instead of using that line as your marker of whether things are going right or going the way they should be going, what would it be like if you had the presence of mind to just be aware of what’s happening throughout your day without applying any kind of judgment as to whether you’re walking the line?
So I’m a big believer that each of us actually knows way more about what we need and where our boundaries are and how we can take care of ourselves than we give ourselves credit for, and the reason we can’t always see it is because there’s too much noise going on on the outside, and we don’t pay enough attention to what our mind is telling us to do or what it needs.
So if you want to have a shift in perception on this, here’s a few specific things I encourage you to do:
First, let’s just identify some areas in your life where you might be unfairly asking yourself to “walk the line.”
I bet you could identify a lot of them that are tied to your performance at work, struggles you might be having in trying to balance work with family time or down time, things like that. I’d start by picking one area where you find yourself doing this.
Just so we can use an example, let’s talk about balancing work with personal or rest time.
This is probably a good example for almost all of us - the conflict we face between should I keep working or should I call it quits and give myself a break. What’s the right thing for me to do? So let’s just use that as an example.
Second, ask yourself “How can I start to pay less attention to the line and pay more attention to evaluating the state of my mindset?”
In other words, how can you move from a place of judgment and comparison to a place where you’re actually aware of how you’re thinking moment to moment so that you can take more intentional action?
So in our example, a lot of times when we’re deciding whether to end the day or not, or whether to take a break or not, we don’t really give much thought to where we’re at in the moment - what we do think about is whether someone else would think it’s acceptable for us to stop right now, or we get too caught up in the moment and swing too far in the direction of just working without pausing to evaluate what’s going on with us.
So in step 2 what I’m suggesting is that you take the time to pause, evaluate where you are, and then take next steps. Then you’re less likely to get caught up in whether you’re doing a good enough job sticking to that fictional line.
And then third, if you do feel like you’ve strayed too far to one side, how can you course correct gradually and without judgment? So just to be clear I’m not suggesting that you never have any point of orientation at all. Striving for a midline and a sense of balance is necessary and can be very grounding.
What I am suggesting is that you take the time to evaluate what it is that you actually need instead of being preoccupied with trying to meet some perfect balance between the two that is elusive.
Going back to my example, if I evaluate the state of my mindset and I find that “You know what, I do need to call it a day because I’m really tired and not doing my best work, and I could probably finish this in half the time tomorrow that it would take me to do it tonight” then I’m not matching my actions based on what I think I should be doing, but instead of what I know I need.
And if I know that I need it, then I can follow through with taking a break and calling it a day because I’ve spent the time to evaluate and make a decision with intention.
And if you catch yourself having gone too far in one direction or the other - that’s ok - you can bring yourself back towards the middle without judgment.
So to recap: first, identify an area in your life where you might be unfairly asking yourself to “walk the line.”
Second, ask yourself “How can I start to pay less attention to the line and pay more attention to evaluating the current state of my mindset?”
And third, if you do feel like you’ve strayed too far to one side, consider how you can course correct gradually and without judgment.
Don’t let yourself lose sight of what it means to be in the moment and experience what is happening right now.
Go have a great workday.