Backstop

There are always some limits in life: you can't stay up too late because you have to go to work in the morning, you can't hang out with your friends all the time because they're busy, you can't take an infinite amount of time on this project because there are deadlines to meet. These are external factors that you can't really do anything about; they're set by someone else and you have to just work with them.

Sometimes, though, you get a chance to get rid of some external limits. You start working for yourself, one of your friends gets a lot of free time, or you can set your own schedule for a project. It's natural to see this as a good thing, and in many ways it is; external limits are inflexible and restrictive, and they can make it difficult to do things the way you want to. Even if that external limit doesn't change your behaviour that much, just knowing that it's there can feel uncomfortable.

But some limits are necessary. After all, you probably want to do something useful with your time, and staying out too much makes it hard to do that. There's some real limit to how much hanging out with your friends actually benefits you; if you see them 24/7 you'll eventually get sick of them. And if you have an infinite amount of time for a project, maybe it'll end up with an infinite scope and never get done. So when the external limits are taken away, how do you keep the limits that you need?

The obvious answer is that you have to make them yourself. External limits get replaced by internal limits, which you can control and set based on your needs and the fundemental mechanics of the situation, rather than what someone else says. This is, on the face of it, unquestionably better: more control, more flexibility, and no strategic inefficiency caused by the difference between what someone else thinks you should do and what is actually best for you.

However, internal limits are also a burden. I once heard that being your own boss is working two jobs, so you should expect it to be harder than working for someone else. I think this is a related idea, though it doesn't only come up in work but in any kind of relationship. Being the person who has to set the limits is an additional burden. It comes with the perks of having control over what those limits are, sure, but it's still extra work being the one who has to say no even when a part of you wants to say yes.

So it's worth thinking about whether there are external limits you'd rather take on as internal limits, and it's equally worth thinking about whether there are internal limits that you don't need; you might be able to make your life easier by turning them back into external ones. But it's also worth thinking about whether there are people around you who are taking on the burden of acting as your backstop: taking on the additional burden of providing you with limits because you aren't limiting yourself.