Out of Our Depth
During summer, as a kid, I would love being at the pool with friends or relatives (who wouldn’t?). A game I used to play back in those days was to slowly walk all the way from the shallow area to the transition where it started to get deep, feeling the water line slowly rising as I strolled, making myself taller and taller only to end up struggling on my tiptoes trying to keep my nose above the line in order to get some air. A silly game with no real goal other than being silly. Childhood in a nutshell.
Luckily, because I had learned how to swim from an early age, I could afford to play this game with the confidence of knowing that, should something prevent me from coming back to the safety of the shallow area, I would manage to gracefully swim—mind you, Eric Moussambani style—my way out of it, therefore staying alive and able to play the game again some other day.
Now, in adult life, the game tends to recreate itself frequently, but only figuratively. Things from work or life feel manageable for a while—giving us a sense of confidence to start walking into them—until they enter the transition zone where they only get deeper, and steeply, making the water line quickly rise up to our nose. Unlike those humid summer days, in many of these situations, knowing how to swim out of them is not always possible, due to the fact they might be topics or domains we haven’t been dealing with before. Moreover, we might want to avoid giving a sign of weakness by accepting we are out of our depth. So, we keep on walking to the deeper part, propelled by our pride. Some might say: you can still be in the deep zone and manage to learn “how to swim” while there. Sure, if you were blessed with the right neuroplasticity. And the serenity. Think about the real pool again: learning how to swim under the stress of knowing your existence is at stake does not look like the best learning scenario ever. Stress is not a great teacher.
Just look around you and spot those who are clearly out of their depth. You will surely find them. Unwritten social rules kind of prevent us from telling them so. Sounds a bit rude, unless it’s someone close. But those social rules should not apply to us internally: we can, in fact we must, tell ourselves when we are clearly out of our depth. And decide what to do: learn, ask for help, or go just back to the shallow area and stop winging it.