Balance Part I
An introduction to balancing our lives and the hidden power of compartmentalization.
Put a rule on the tip of your finger, and then watch yourself feel like Neo from The Matrix defying gravity and all sorts, only because you managed to balance the rule. Balance in real life is much harder to achieve. It is complex problems solved with simple solutions, an eccentric paradox. The mind is the most powerful tool in the universe, this may sound like something Dr. Xavier would say to a young X-men, but it is true.
We live fast lives in a fast world, and as time goes by we have little or no time for ourselves. The older generation almost imposed the mentality that it was near impossible to have multiple career choices, it had to be tailored down to a specific field. Although, as years passed the novelty with people was having multiple, versatile, and interconnected dynamic careers. The year 2020— the pandemic year— was a real eye-opener. People were forced to work from home and realized that they could multitask with the help of what I call “office tech”. The big question is how do we balance being a writer, office personnel, and an entrepreneur at the same, how do we juggle multiple paths?
Talking to Joe during the constant student community writing session hosted by Kelvin, he gave a bit of advice— advice from an older constant student— that one way to achieve balance is to not do it alone. This blew my mind! Why didn’t I think of that sooner? It felt like it was so obvious yet so vague Because I too was a victim of always working alone. Teamwork help lessens the burden of the workload. For instance, a donkey transporting bulk commodities would take a longer time to get to the goal, but if the load was shared between two donkeys, obviously the transportation will be faster. It then becomes a matter of efficiency, How well was the second donkey trained? Getting a team together can be a double-edged sword, it can harm the project or help it. Getting the right teammates matters in balancing workload.
Compartmentalizing your mind
Psychologists and psychoanalysts have often likened compartmentalizing your mind to a form of defense mechanism to protect one's belief system to avoid internal conflict. Imagine you were watching a movie strongly contrary to your beliefs, how do you disassociate your religious credence from that of the movie? Using myself as an example, by religion I am a Christian and was taught strongly since genesis that the devil is evil. Surprisingly, when I found myself watching Chilling Adventures of Sabrina—a high school satan-witch-themed movie with a great storyline on Netflix—it wasn't hard for me to watch it even though it was in contrast to my article of faith, I can't say the same for others. This was only possible through compartmentalizing my thought process, telling myself that this is just a movie, a work of art for entertainment. Entertainment along with other activities have their own section in my mind frame.
As usual in this newsletter, we try to see things from a different angle. In my last essay, I talked about the mind having two states. Now, each state has different sections that help prepare our minds for various activities. Picture your mind as a shelf with different compartments and drawers. Each section on the shelf represents a mind space—a mood. Our mind spaces are meant to be filled naturally. Thus, all our lives we gather books (skills and experiences) and put them into different parts of the shelf, hoping to read them when we need them. Assumingly, all our lives we gathered only books on economics and that's all we read our entire life, not throwing shade on economics, but that sounds pretty boring. Our minds possess the power to house a variety of books, why choose one?
To attain balance one must have what to balance. As life goes on we pick up different skills as a result of our environment, hobbies, or a need to survive. Subconsciously, we fill up our mind shelf and end up with a more cosmopolitan collection.
AWARENESS: DRIFTING MIND SPACES.
Young Jedi, it is essential to be aware of our mental space, it is key to attaining balance. When you are conscious of what state you are in, you can easily switch in between mental moods. In the morning, you are at work getting praised by your boss for doing such an excellent job. During your lunch break, you are a writer, and while you eat your sandwich you scribble drafts for your write-up. In the evening you are your own boss, managing your start-up. To be honest, this is tedious, only if you do it alone. To be able to carry out these different tasks and balance them your mind must drift from one mind space to the other. When collecting books from your mind shelf, it has to be related to the topic at hand—the mood must match the task. Awareness and drifting mind spaces are tied together by one important factor, which is Time management, without it, all things will fall apart.
Hey, I am glad you read to the end, sorry to cut you short. Usually, I like to keep things short and interesting, so I am stopping here this week. If you enjoyed it, expect “Balance II” next week where we dive further into attaining balance in life.
Thank you!
Have a lovely week.
Always looking forward to your newsletter.thanks keep it up
Wonderful piece. I understand your thoughts. It is an eye opener.