Fighting All or Nothing Thinking

In 2015, I realized that I was addicted to screens. I was a 3 screens at all times person: watching TV, looking at stats on my computer, playing games on my phone.

It wasn't until a major crisis in my life that I was able to shut those screens off and reconnect with my real life.  After a time of screen detox I started to think through what boundaries and limits I could put in place in my life.

Here's how it went. 

I love sports: hockey, football, soccer, basketball... pretty much all sports I can become interested in and enjoy. This isn't a bad thing. But at one point in my life I was consuming 24-30 hours of sports content each week.  I was highly invested in my favorite teams. This is a nice way of saying, "If my team lost, I was grumpy the rest of the day..." While not a bad thing in itself, sports had become misordered in my life. 

Rather than swearing off sports altogether, I began to look at them, and all my media consumption through a different lens: beneficial, permissible, detrimental, or harmful. 

When I was watching so much content I found myself to be irritable, aloof, and disconnected from my real life. It was having a detrimental impact on myself, and was harmful to my close relationships. I needed to find a way to bring it to a place of being permissible, if not beneficial.

For me, beneficial meant that I needed to become more focused and limited in what I watched. After some trial and error, I found that I have my healthiest relationship to sports is when I limit myself to watching 1 game each week. This is my guideline because it helps ME be healthy. This isn't something I can place on someone else.

There is also wiggle room, for example when my favorite hockey team was in the finals, or if watching the game is a part of a social gathering like the Superbowl. The goal is not to be legalistic about it, but rather to look for the boundaries and rhythms as something that will help foster growth, connection, and health in life.

There are few places where all or nothing thinking is helpful. What is beneficial for one person may be permitted for others and detrimental for still more.

It's my hope that by having a more nuanced approach to these places in life we may be able to foster better understanding and compassion for those around us. And also for ourselves.