Living in the Flicker

💡 why our lives aren't on or off

Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography on Unsplash

When my living room dimmer switch broke, I told myself it didn’t matter. It’s fine. On or off is enough.

A switch is simple, right? Light or dark, go or stop, action or inertia.

And in the moment, simplicity seemed like a gift. No more second-guessing how bright the room should be: all or nothing.

Yet over the following days, I found myself reaching for the switch, instinctively wanting to adjust the light.

Not because I needed dramatic change, but because there were moments when I wanted a little more glow, or a little less. Without realizing it I’d spent years enjoying the in-between, subtly tuning the space to match my needs.

And now? Now, it was either blinding brightness or darkness.

It didn’t take me long to realize: on or off is not enough.

Each area of our lives exists on a gradient: a spectrum of intensity and attention which allows for nuanced adjustments. These adjustments, ones we often don’t realize we are making, prevent us from binary choices. Work, relationships, health, and personal growth, each has a dial. And while we can't turn them all up to full brightness at once, the mistake isn't in choosing where to focus. The mistake is in turning the others off.

When we enter a season of intense career focus, it’s tempting to shut down everything else. Social life? Off. Health? Off. Learning? Off. The same can happen in reverse: we fall in love, and suddenly fitness, finances, and ambitions go dark. This all-or-nothing mindset is tempting, even natural, but it’s unsustainable.

Rather than turning other areas off, we need to turn them down.

If your priority right now is building your career, your relationships don’t need to be neglected, they can run on low-effort but high-return actions, like sending a quick check-in text to a friend or planning a recurring monthly dinner.

If you’re in a season of parenting, your fitness doesn’t need to be at its peak, but a 15-minute walk is infinitely better than quitting.

The key is small, consistent effort in our non-focus areas. Enough to maintain the rhythm (heeey power & pattern of consistency!) because when we do that, we don’t everrrrr have to start over later.

Here’s why this works:

💡 Growth is Evolutionary, Not Episodic

As much as self-help books might have us think, change doesn’t happen in clean, compartmentalized episodes it unfolds g r a d u a l l y. We don’t suddenly arrive at a desired career phase or health place in our lives and then switch it all off when a new focus arises.

Instead, each area of our lives is consistently evolving, and it’s that consistency—> not intensity which allows the evolution to build on itself over time.

💡Low is ALWAYS Better than Off

Ambitious people struggle with this.

Perfectionists want things done right immediately or not at all.

They tell themselves If I can’t work out for an hour, why bother? or, If I don’t have two hours for deep work, I’ll just answer emails. but here’s the thing→ low keeps us in the game.

Low keeps us from having to start over!

Low prevents the inevitable erosion that happens when things are left in the dark too long.

When my living room dimmer switch broke, I told myself it didn't matter. It's fine. But much like that broken dimmer, I learned binary thinking doesn't serve me even if in the moment simplicity seems like a gift.

When we keep the lights on (to beat a metaphor to its proverbial death) we maintain momentum. We stay connected to our habits, our relationships, our identity.

And when the shift happens, as it always does, we can dial things back up without the painful process of starting from zero.

The real strategy? Adjust as needed; never go dark.

I challenge you to identify one area where you've been thinking in absolutes, and find your dimmer switch instead.

Where might a gentle glow serve you better than complete darkness?