Racing from Finish Line to Finish Line
Cyclical effort and its effect on well-being.
Today’s the first day of a new month. To me, that means the start of a new cycle of effort. This got me thinking about my tendency to view many things in my life as if they were races, with a starting point and finish line. As a result, I feel like I’m constantly racing toward one finish line, only to realize that while it may be the completion of one race, that very same finish line is also the starting point for the next one.
This approach requires a cyclical expenditure of energy and also results in a constantly-building level of stress. At the beginning of the race, I start a light jog, giving myself permission to take things just a little bit easier. At the halfway point, I start measuring where I am in the race against where I think I should be at that moment. Since I’m usually behind where I think I need to be, the feelings of stress start to accelerate. Once in a while, I may be a little further ahead than I think I should be, then let myself ease off for a bit longer. These instances are few and far between.
At this point I trigger an internal feedback process that constantly measures where I am against where I think I should be. The process then feeds itself back to my mind, where I tighten up what I’ve let loosen toward the beginning of the race, and start bracing for some hard effort to catch up to where I feel like I need to be, before crossing the finish line.
The feedback loop itself requires energy to run and becomes a source of tension as a result. The structure I then impose to respond to the feedback loop then quickly takes shape, like a scaffold all around me. This scaffold then provides additional sources of input to the feedback loop, as if there are small probes or sensors at each intersection of its bars, providing input to the feedback loop on an increasingly specific set of metrics, sent at a constantly accelerating rate.
In response to the increasing number of signals being provided at an increasing rate, stress levels continue to increase as my body continues to tighten-up, in order to constantly squeeze out the energy it needs to respond to the ever increasing intensity of the feedback loop.
Most of the time it feels like the scaffold stays just far enough away from me so that I don’t stumble over it and can keep moving toward the finish line at an increasing speed. However, every once in while, it may tighten-up at the wrong spot, causing me to trip over it.
At this point, one of two things may happen. If the fall is hard enough, it might, just might, break the scaffolding and release me, even before I get to the finish line. If the fall isn’t hard enough to break the scaffold, I just pick myself up, which takes quite a bit of energy at this point, brace myself, and continue toward the finish line, only to realize, when I get there, that it’s actually the starting line of the next race. The scaffold from the last race mercifully falls off, giving me a chance to start jogging again toward the next finish line.
