Expand or contract?

Knowing when it's time for each, and when it's time to get moving again, is crucial

As I was getting ready to leave today, T. was organizing his equipment for his overnight hike and commiserating about the weather. I said to him, “You sound like you’re undertaking an exam or trial. Why are you going?” He told me, “I have to. I can’t let myself stop doing things just because I don’t feel like doing them at the moment.” He added that it would certainly be more comfortable to sleep in a bed tonight, with an actual roof overhead, but he’d be angry at himself for ducking out of the challenge. I get it; I often feel the same way about rehearsals on Monday and Thursday nights. I could drop out of chorale, band and practically everything else, and never be uncomfortable again. But I’d hate myself.

A writing coach I’ve been following for 15 years, Jen Louden, posted a list of strategies for being in the world as we get older. Some readers may find the title offensive but it’s the ideas that count. I subscribe to two writers/coaches who have been addressing the issues surrounding being both a globally and community-minded American during these outrageous times while navigating a range of personal situations such as caring for a chronically ill spouse or dealing with one’s own tendency toward depression or despair. Sometimes it seems like they inhabit opposite ends of a continuum. Jen is the firecracker. The other writer has such a soothing “voice” that her posts sometimes feel like a lullaby. She specializes in self-care advice.

Both approaches are necessary at different times, and what works will be as individual as the people who use them. My own experience has been that #2 on Jen’s list, When in doubt, expand rather than contract, is crucial. As a younger Boomer close to the X border, I’ve had the opportunity to observe people 10-15 years older, including former colleagues and members of extended family, as they’ve aged. Some have done it well. Others have become, for me, cautionary tales. As Jen’s piece notes, we’ve all seen it happen.

With the happy examples, it seems to me that much depends on resisting the urge to make contraction a habit. And that while taking measures to stay reasonably mentally healthy is important (and yes, tools such as journaling and therapy can be crucial), sometimes that is best done by focusing on something outside oneself, such as a cause or absorbing interest. I’m normally wary of generalizations and all-or-nothing statements, but after processing all my observations, I’m certain that it’s possible to live too much inside one’s own head.

During the 90’s and early 2000’s, T. and I listened to a talk show on NPR called New Dimensions. Each episode opened with host MIchael Toms proclaiming, “Only as we ourselves change will the world be changed.” It always seemed to us that this is only half the equation. Eventually the opening lines expanded to “Only as we ourselves change and take that change out into the world will the world be changed.” Much more accurate. During one New Dimensions episode, Toms interviewed Jungian psychologist and author Thomas Moore (Care of the Soul and many others), whose advice was “Don’t make a project of yourself.” I’ve known people who’ve spent years majoring in introspective self-improvement, thinking that one fine day they’ll be ready to tackle goals such as writing a novel but still haven’t gotten around to it. The best advice I’ve ever read regarding handling inertia, stage fright or stuckness was Barbara Sher’s “Do it before you’re ready!” She points out that for some people, endless preparation causes the big freeze.

For each of us the challenges we know we need to accept will be different. Some can be chosen, such as T.’s hikes and my rehearsals. Some aren’t chosen but they show up - divorce, health issues, children in trouble, job insecurities. And some challenges can technically be turned away, but depending on one’s place in the world, this may have harmful repercussions. Actor Will Smith, speaking about being Black in America, once said something like “We didn’t choose our situation but we’re still responsible for how we deal with it.” We Americans who are worried about what’s happening - the reports from my friends in Minneapolis are heartbreaking - didn’t choose to be born into the empire but we are responsible for our responses to it. It’s a default for being born American. As a recently widowed friend who has just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s said, we don’t always get to choose our challenges.

Keeping up with chosen challenges such as wet winter hiking can be a way to exercise the self-discipline that might be required for continuing to work for a better country and world. And it’s also important to step off the treadmill sometimes, and rest. Both are necessary. The key to the right balance might lie in knowing oneself, with the lead question being, “Am I prone to be workaholic, overcommitted, always pushing? Or am I more likely to withdraw, retreat, or isolate?” It’s for each of us to navigate between the two extremes and find the right spot.

And as Thomas Moore points out in his Dark Nights of the Soul, there are times when contraction is in order; the natural world has its periods of growth and dormancy, and humans are part of the natural world. But several people in my circles have withdrawn and seem unable to climb out even though they’ve become miserable. Collective efforts to help, including mine, aren’t working. The trick seems to be instinctively knowing when the period of rest has come to a natural conclusion and recognizing when it’s time to emerge and rejoin the flow. If remaining in rest is causing dissatisfaction and unhappiness, it’s time.