By Amanda Knox

I grew up with two mutt dogs—a chummy, runt named Ralph and his fretful, dominant sister, Britta. They always escaped from the backyard when we were away at school. It didn’t matter that we walked them everyday or that our backyard was bigger than our house or that they had plenty of food and water and each other to entertain. It wasn’t enough. It was like Ralphy and Britta just had this itch to be elsewhere.

I was an easy kid back then, my mom tells me. I put myself to bed early. I played nice and fair with other kids. I ate what was put in front of me. I did well in school, even if I didn’t do all my homework. I never felt the need to act out or object or rebel because everything seemed good and abundant and I never felt measured up against anyone else. There was nothing I could think to change, within me or without. I was just happy, and happy to just be.

Nowadays, my brain feels more like my two run-away dogs. In the midst of one project, I’m distracted thinking about another. I start a to-do list only to realize that there’s always and ever something else to do. Even now, I’m wondering to myself, Is this really the column I want to write? Sure, I’m friends with a few scatterbrain geniuses who somehow manage to pull their tangled threads through the eye of the needle, but not me. I’m chasing mice across the carpet as they scurry past my feet and slip through my fingers.

When did this shift happen, and how? Why all this compulsive nail-biting and cuticle-tearing when I both intuitively understand and rationally am at peace with the fact that there’s only so much anyone can get done in a single day, in a single life? Sure, the world of the adult is more complex and demanding than the world of the child, but my ability to process and problem-solve has adapted to—indeed, developed in tandem with—the complexity of my environment. What’s good is still good and what’s abundant is still abundant. It must be some deep-seated insecurity, some itch about my current position, some measuring of myself up against something else that didn’t exist until I had lived long enough, gained enough perspective: my ideal self.

The other night, my partner described to me his theory of fulfillment, a tetrachotomy of human experience comprised of thinking, feeling, doing, and being. To be fulfilled, he thought, a person needs to find balance. It’s easy to recognize a person who feels, and is, and does without thinking. They’re impulsive, irrational, socially immature. They turn over tables, confess their love to strangers. Another recognizable type is a person who thinks and does but fails to engage with their emotions. They lack the information that only emotions provide, with which they could more accurately, effectively, and better do their thinking and doing. They are isolated, out of touch.

I thought of my mice scurrying across the floor. With my eye ever turned toward my past, present and future, my sense of self is both secure and surrounded by scattered thoughts and feelings that want to find form in action—action I fail to grasp. “I think and feel and am, but I don’t do,” I said.

“I can help you with that.” He smiled. “I’m great at getting things done.” He is.

And the person who thinks, feels, and does, but fails to be? A person who is capable, productive, socially active and mature, every which way an adult—but lacking peace, pause, presence, wisdom? “That’s me,” he said. “And that’s why I need you.” 

Besides making my heart do a little flip-flop, our conversation reminded me that whatever actions I chose to take, I’m not alone. When I’m unbalanced, I can be encouraged and uplifted by the strengths and balances of my people who, instead of measuring me against my ideal self, recognize my ideal self within me. I can take strides in confidence, whistling while I work. Do, to do, to do.