As a self-proclaimed environmentally conscious person I have solar panels. And as a self-proclaimed environmentally friendly person, I still run water while I brush my teeth. I chose to do the former consciously, while I tend to the latter subconsciously. And even though I know running the water goes against what I intend to be, I continue to do it. After asking myself many times ‘why’, and observing mine and other’s behavior, I realized that this isn’t the only contradiction in my life.
At first, I thought this was a bad thing - I’m inconsistent, my behavior is unreliable, and I’m a maligned human. But, in the process of defining this as a good or bad thing, I came to the simple conclusion - I’m a walking contradiction.
What is compartmentalization
The reason why we're all full of contradictions is that we compartmentalize. The reason we do this is simple: to preserve an integrated sense of self. In other words, what we do, doesn’t always align with what and who we think we are. If we were constantly aware of this disparity we’d be constantly anxious. So instead, we compartmentalize our thoughts to avoid the discomfort caused by the dissonance.
And at its base level, this means we put our actions, values, ideas in separate water-tight parts of our brain to manage the potential distress of having to deal with potential inconsistencies. Sometimes this can have an adverse effect as we could be ignoring the truth, but at other times, it can be helpful when managing emotional distress.
A real-life example of this is a conversation I used to have with a colleague of mine - both of us disliked our jobs at the time yet, we wanted to perform well. Primarily to achieve promotions or bonuses, which admittedly, is a little greedy, but the truth is we simply couldn’t find another reason to go to work. So, we’d constantly remind ourselves that we’d need to compartmentalize. To us, this meant putting aside all the frustration and do our best. In the process, we were able to perform at a high level and moved past the dissonance.
The benefits of compartmentalization
As in my real-life example, compartmentalization has its pros. For me, it allowed me to ignore all the crap and my true opinion of work so that I could perform at the level I wanted to.
Even the great F.Scott Fitzgerald has been quoted as saying:
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function”
So, learning how to compartmentalize as its many benefits:
It can help you achieve clarity when you’re confused and can’t do much about it
It can help you put aside a conflicting opinion and take action
It can help manage the discomfort you might feel when not agreeing with something, just so you can listen and be present
Compartmentalization isn’t a tactic that can be slowly applied. It happens in real-time and can be difficult to implement when you know it needs to happen. Yet, knowing you have the inherent ability will help you start to form some healthy habits in triggering it.
A place where I start is by saying - “I’ll put that aside for now and focus on what's in front of me.” thinking like this helps me to put a thing in its place where I’m not neglecting it entirely, but will be attending to it later.
So, embrace that you're a complex human, and don’t be surprised when you see inconsistencies in your behavior. Learn to live with them and try to maneuver around them where possible by using the tactic of compartmentalization.
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