How Limiting Yourself Makes You Limitless
"The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus." — Alexander Graham Bell
I always felt like I couldn't narrow down my focus to just one interest because I was scared of losing all of my potential in all my other interests. By picking just one, I was losing everything else, and I was poorer for it. This episode delves into the idea of the Backwards Law, and how, sometimes, you have to do the uninstictive backwards thing to get your desires. What if you had to actually narrow your focus to broaden your horizon?
CREDITS:
Podcast Creator: Jordan Taylor
Josh Taylor as the Professor.
Kristi Smith as student #1.
Samuel Smith as student #2.
Kristi and Samuel Smith's Podcast.
TRANSCRIPT:
My name is Jordan Taylor, and welcome to the If Then podcast. Our brains our a conglomerate of if/then statements, like in computer code, and oftentimes new lines of code are hard to write in our mind when we’re trying new things, for example if I want to play piano, then I need to read music. Sitting down and coding that particular if then statement could take years of dedication, but when we do sit down and create new then statements for a complicated if, it feels freaking amazing. This podcast is your weekly motivation, and mine, to get uncomfortable and write some neurological code.
"The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus." — Alexander Graham Bell
When I walked into class and sat down to have my first short story critiqued in my newly selected minor, creative writing, I was confident--not in my minor, that is, but in my story. I had agonized for years over which major and minor to choose. My freshman year I was labeled Undecided, and that seemed to fit my entire life's existence quite well. But, sophomore year, it was time to decide. I had so many interests in life, and I needed to choose just one. What did I want my degree to be in? I had absolutely no idea what the answer was. So I just picked. English and Creative Writing. Sure, how about that.
As students filed into the room, I shuffled through my story's pages. I had wanted to start off with something impressive. 2,500 words filled with a dramatic plane crash, a lone survivor, and his magnificent realization that he had a calling on his life. "Lone Survivor," I read the title in my head as everyone took their chairs around me. It was a small class. The 12 of us sat around a conference table in leather office chairs. Professor Hillard at the head--a notable, published author within the writing community. They pulled my story out of their backpacks, assigned reading over the weekend, and I couldn't wait to hear what they thought of the intense story.
Professor Hillard: "Alright, class, let's just get right to it. We have a lot of stories to get to today... First story of the day iiissss.... Jordan's! What praise do we have for this story, class?"
There was a pause. A long pause. Leather rubbed with a shift in a chair.
Student #1: "I... thought that the story was... good how it--was redemptive."
Another pause.
"Anything else, class?"
I sat with a new weight as seconds passed.
Student #2: "On page 2, when the plane crashes, it was interesting how he described the the moment before impact."
And as the next student, in the course of time, spoke up, all I heard was silence, in his obligation.
When the time for critiques rolled in, however, the hands shot up. They said that they didn't feel the weight of the dramatic plane crash, the main problem being that the character wasn't emotionally relatable because they didn't know him, his thoughts, they just knew what was acting upon him. The character was too general, nonspecific. They said the story was, also, too jam packed with scenes broadly and loosely described. Clearly, they didn't feel what I wanted them to feel. It fell flat. And then they moved on to the next student's story. And I sat there. Devastated. Questioning everything. Had I picked the wrong interest to get a degree in? I knew this would happen if I was forced to narrow down to one, now I'm stuck.
In the midst of my distress, however, in that first critique, a truth had unwittingly been shown to me. Something that, when I sat down to try again and write my next story, I suddenly connected from class and it seemed backwards, but somehow true. If I wanted my story to reach more people, I had to go in with the mindset of limiting its reach. My character and my story had to be more specific in order to be appealing to a broader audience. I had to narrow down to broaden out. The more specific I got, the more quirky and one-of-a-kind the character was, the more people could relate to him, and his feelings and his unique world.
This was backwards to what I had intuitively thought--that a more general character with a more general story, would appeal to a wider audience because they could fill in the gaps and insert themselves into the story. All I had to do was describe the scene, provide the background. Logically, I thought, if I narrowed down the specificity of the character, it would isolate and disengage my readers because the character was too different from them. How could they relate? It couldn't possibly work! But that was exactly wrong.
This seeming paradox can be explained, in part, by something called the Backwards Law, as named by Alan Watts. The Backwards Law attempts to describe life's odd way of giving you, or rather not giving you, your desires. For example, the more you want to be cool, the more you'll try too hard, and you'll seem uncool to others. The more you desire to be funny, the more desperate you'll seem, and the more unfunny you'll become. The more you want to sleep, the more stressed you'll get about it, and the longer you'll lie awake. In my case, the more broad I wanted my audience, the more broad I made my story, and the less people it reached. Only until I understood that I had to do the backwards thing to gain what I wanted, was I able to, then, start writing some compelling stuff. And that changed everything for me.
So, from then on, to make my story appealing to a broader audience, I did the backwards thing, the thing my professor suggested, I made my story more narrow. And I started to improve--rapidly. For my second to last story of the year, I didn't write anything grandiose like a plane crash. I simply wrote about two guys and one girl in a love triangle near the Everglades in South Florida. I made the characters very defined, unique, and narrowed with a clear social structure and specific culture including inside jokes in their friendship that was true to the characters and their world and the reader was just peaking in. And to my surprise, it was wildly popular in class as, somehow, each reader could relate to the unique characters. All at once, I went from one of the most struggling writers in class, to my professor, who didn't give compliments much at all, saying that the beach scene in my story was the best piece of fiction he'd ever read from an undergraduate. And I just sat there, feeling like I had unlocked some truth of the universe. Like a switch, it just made sense to me now, and not just in writing, but in life itself.
That understanding of the paradoxical truth of the Backwards Law, that you have to do the opposite almost of what you want, to make your desired outcome occur, not only dramatically improved my writing, but also improved my life. I finally felt peace, that I hadn't felt before, over my decision for my minor, and my major, in college--not because I was now getting better at creative writing, but because I realized something. By narrowing my focus, I broadened my horizon.
See, I've told you that I've always had a ton of interests throughout my life--music, sports, health, writing, drawing, game development--and they were all laid out nicely on a table in front of me as I prepared for college, arranged and pretty but mostly untouched. With so much potential organized right there, how could I choose just one? "What if I made the wrong decision, after all?" "How could I possibly narrow my focus down to just one to commit to?" I didn't want to eliminate the potential of all the other interests. By picking just one I would lose everything else, and I would be poorer for it. Or so I thought…
When viewed through the lens of the Backwards Law, however, I understood my conundrum differently, and it made sense now. In order to truly have limitless potential, I had to limit myself. I realized that, by narrowing my focus, and in so doing, limiting myself, I have unlimited potential. By having a broad focus with unlimited options, on the other hand, I have limited potential. How can I do anything if I can do anything? What are the rules? What's the game I'm playing? On the contrary, how can I not do anything, when I can do only one thing?
See, by leaving all my options spread out on the table of life, I was stagnant and paralyzed by decisions. Where should I start with this interest? Should I do this one first? Or maybe that one? How long should I work on this particular interest before switching to this other one? Tomorrow? In a week? Hmm... I'm struggling, maybe I should try another, completely? So many questions. So overwhelming.
But by narrowing my focus and committing to one thing, just one, I've made the hard decision. I'm doing this one thing for now, and I'm going to figure it out at all costs. And I don't have to make that decision again. I've told myself that this is the interest I'll pursue over everything. Now, all that's left is to just do it, consistently, and then bask in the infinity within the bounds of my narrowed focus. The endless ins and out, the endless potential within. Like in mathematics, you can technically be bound inside something, and still find infinity. There's an ending you can see, that's the line over there, and never reach it. Right as you're coming up to the line, you can always split the distance you have left, in half, and get closer to the line and closer without every reaching it. Even if you've mastered your craft, your interest of choice, you can always learn something deeper about it. And you'll get closer to the finish and closer and never reach it. It's a beautifully frustrating thought, indeed.
Now, if you limit your focus, and eventually realize, after some time, that you want to shift that laser to something else, that's okay. You can always change your mind. There's no wrong choice because they all teach the most important principle: How narrowing your focus leads to unlimited potential. You gave your interest of choice a focused fair shot, even when it got tough, and now, because of that dedication, you have a much more accurate understanding of which interest you should delve into next--way more than if you had just sat uncommitted looking at all your options on the table with the same amount of focus. Now, you deeply understand how much you liked that one interest, what the pros and cons were of pursuing it, what aspects you liked and which you didn't so much, and you can use that knowledge to point your light to a more accurate place. As you, again, narrow that light to a lasered focus in your new self-limitation, you'll discover infinity within its bounds, yet again. In a backwards way, by narrowing down, you won't lose anything, you'll gain everything. You'll discover limitless potential, unimaginable in the broad, unfocused world outside, where you used to live. And as you explore, within these new limits, you'll finally realize that life was meant to have limitations, and that those very limitations, those defined boarders, are what create infinity. They're what create you. And then, only then, within those defined and expressed limits, will your character, in the life story you're writing, be infinitely complex and irresistibly compelling, and you'll become someone.
So I'll leave you with this: "The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus." — Alexander Graham Bell
Thank you so much for listening to season 2 episode 6 of the If Then Podcast. Next week is the last episode of Season 2, which means that the AirPods Max are going to be given away on Monday, November 7 IF we get to 200 shares on Instagram. If you enjoy the podcast and want to be entered to win, give me a 5-star review, screenshot this podcast, and share it on your instagram tagging @ifthenpodcast in your post or story. We're at 114 shares currently, and if we get to 200 by November 6th, one of you will win AirPods Max the next day. If not, I keep them--which I'm more than happy to do. But I want one of you to win, so keep sharing. Sharing this podcast and leaving reviews is the main way that other people like yourself discover it. It's the main way it grows. So thank you so much to those who have left reviews and shared. And don’t forget, while we're building to that 200 mark for the AirPods Max giveaway, I’ve also been giving away 2 free 1 month Audible gift cards every week to two of you who share on Instagram. Last week, Sara (@sara_bloom_19) and Nick (@nickmartinez140) won a free credit for an audiobook of their choice. If you shared the last episode, you can also share this one too to be entered to win again. Thank you so much for listening, my name is Jordan Taylor, and what if/then will you write today?
