Tread Lightly, for You Tread on My Dreams

So, here is something I have been thinking about due to recent experiences.

Any project that a person is working on with his or her full heart has a sensation equivalent to walking on a tight rope. This is a good metaphor for it because it has the connotations of fear, sweat, hard work, tension, and desire.

When you are in the middle of the tight rope it is not helpful for a person to call out to you, "Man, it doesn't really look like it's going to work out for you. You really shouldn't have started walking on that rope." Nor is it useful to hear, "That tight rope looks tough. I hope you will be adequately compensated for your work on it. If you aren't, it really wasn't worth the struggle." Nor is it useful to hear the very big extreme of, "You will surely fall."

On the other hand, it's not really helpful to hear, "Man, you got this. I don't know what you're worried about. It's just a twenty foot fall if you don't make it." Nor is it helpful to hear. "You're already to the other side. You shouldn't be worrying at all." In this instance, the person on the tight rope most likely thinks, "Shut up. To assume I'm already at the end, and to speak as if I'm already there, is just begging for a wind to come along and blow me off."

On top of these two extremes, it is apparent to me that when a person realizes he has made a mistake by saying one of the former sentences, like, "That tight rope looks tough. I hope you will be adequately compensated for your work on it. If you aren't, it really wasn't worth the struggle," then he is more likely to overcompensate by saying the exact opposite sentence: "You're already to the other side. You shouldn't be worrying at all." That is, to make up for their slight in one extreme, they then go the exact opposite direction to the other extreme because they think that's what will make up for it, or is what you want to hear, as you're walking on this very thin rope, with your heart beating fast in your chest.

These extremes are not helpful at all.

The most important thing for a person to hear on the tight rope is an acknowledgment of their very situation. That is, "Keep your eye on the rope. You've come really far, and that's good. But I know that there may still come a wind. Maintain your focus. Keep going. I'm wishing the best for you. You are in my thoughts."

I am suspicious of people who speak in the first or second extreme. I am loyal to the people who follow Yeats' poem: "Tread lightly. For you tread on my dreams." I am loyal to people who acknowledge the reality of a person's situation as they walk across the tight rope.

I'll add that I think just "You got this" is fine. But it's the whole "You got this. What could you possibly have to worry about?" that I have a problem with. I picture a person rolling their eyes.

And I mean for my example to access the kind of inherent superstitious nature of, "Please for the love of God don't invite the wind. I will tip over."

It can be just as frightening for people to speak of a success you haven't yet captured as it is for them to speak of a success they think you will never capture.

I think people who naturally tread lightly will automatically move towards the mediatory "Keep your eye on the rope. You've come far, and you should believe in me that I believe in you." It doesn't have to be a conscious decision.

I'll also add that walking on a tight rope makes one super sensitive to what one hears. It makes people super sensitive to statements that they may not take so seriously if they were standing on solid ground. And, taking things seriously, people naturally think more deeply about them. Hence, this post.

I really wanted to seek an adequate metaphor that is helpful for others (and myself) to explain their discomfort when people do not tread lightly in terms of their ideas or projects.