When I first began coaching a swimming team, I fought my instincts during a meet and followed the example of veteran coaches who critiqued performance immediately after their swimmers' events. My instinct was to allow the swimmers to go through the entire day or two of events, sometimes three per day. My reasoning was that whatever training they had accomplished, there is little for them to modify at this point. I wish I had listened to my gut. I got caught up in providing meaningless advice which deviated from the true support they needed. The mindset, or map this followed was one deep within me: spot the broken things and fix them. I allowed the gravity of the culture to draw me back toward what was hardwired into me.
I am most aware of this because of all the moments that I am in discussion with others, be it athletes, students, etc. where I offer a possibility of a third option outside of their anticipated dual outcome scenario. I can recall one student debating, within himself, the identification of friends as time progresses and the struggle he faced. I offered the possibility that 'friend' might mean more than just who is good to you versus who is bad to you. To spare you the entire philosophical conversation, I also shared details of Aristotle's teaching and it gave him great comfort to see things differently.
My internal map, the one that guided me in my coaching during meets, was one that saw a duality to life. Things are right or wrong. If something was broke it needed to be repaired. The learned map, one I acquired over my lifetime of experience, that continues to develop, starts to shine through as with that student's discussion of friendship, but sometimes still ends up in conflict with the original map as was evident in my coaching.
In some ways, I feel as though there is a map that was built into me early in time, one that presents the world in a dichotomy. As I learned that not all of life involves polar opposites, this new map tries to wedge its way into my decision making process, leaving me with the continuing challenge to ignore the first map and follow the second which allows for a continuum of thought. Partially, this lived out experience makes sense in terms of the 'creating of a parallel way of life.' Ultimately, however, I need to rely less on the first map.