Narrow Focus and Balance

 Sometimes we can take analysis too far. As a scientific method or as a discovery process it does a wonderful job of breaking things down to their basic components to understand how it works or the basic elements of a problem. In each case we start with a known object and keep subdividing until we have basic ingredients.

When we take this approach and apply it to subjective things such as feelings, beliefs or goals; it can be like a hypochondriac focusing on a symptom and discovering a multitude of illnesses that they are sure they have and are forever curing.

We look at the problems and symptoms gratefully accepted from the whatever field of psychology we want to look at and decide we have it. We then put ourselves into analysis mode determined to find the cause of the problem and fix it. We can however, end up losing sight of the overall picture.

When we look at one aspect of ourselves without considering the whole it is like looking at a pile of parts from a watch. Every piece has meaning only to the overall design. You change a part at the risk of making the watch run faster or slower or not at all.Too narrow a focus can sometimes create more problems than it solves.

We need to be careful that we keep an eye on the effect a change has on the balance we maintain between all aspects of ourselves.

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