You can flourish within your limitations.

Try to see it as an exercise in creativity.

Monochrome painting is a technique in which an artist uses varying shades of a single color to create an entire work. I recently saw a portrait rendered only in shades of blue on Instagram, and I was struck by how elegant and evocative it was despite the restraint. Just as an artist can make something beautiful with fewer tools, you can flourish within your limitations.

I have a great deal of personal experience with this. I’ve struggled with mental illness, lived on very low wages, and was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome when I was only 20 years old. I’ve spent my entire adult life learning to adapt to my changing limitations and often succeeding beyond my expectations. I may not have the same life as many others do, but I have a full, satisfying life all the same.

As odd as it may sound, living within your limitations can be paradoxically freeing. To give a personal example, one of my ongoing medical conditions prevents me from eating in a way most people would consider normal. I need to eat very high fiber and very little fat, so I can eat almost no prepackaged food and can eat at very few restaurants. I was angry and resentful when it became apparent that I would probably never be able to tolerate a standard diet again, but I came to accept it over time. I was recently walking through a grocery store when it struck me that I couldn’t eat about 85% of the food around me. At first, a glimmer of the old anger resurfaced, but then I laughed. I’ll never be overwhelmed by making choices in a grocery store again, and how freeing is that?

My food decisions are more straightforward than they’ve ever been before. Instead of dithering over which of 10 brands of tortilla chips or 50 varieties of frozen dinners I should buy, I walk right by them. I literally can’t eat them, so there’s no decision to be made. I don’t need to worry about which of the infinite number of restaurants I’ll order food from, as I can only safely eat meals from three. Although my diet probably looks repetitive and awful to most people, I enjoy what I eat. I’m still a decent cook and a skilled baker; I simply had to learn to cook and bake differently. Once I embraced my dietary limitations, the challenge of feeding myself this way forced me to be more creative. I still eat things that taste good; I can still have snacks and treats. True, the specifics have changed (and I expend more effort than I used to), but the aspects I most enjoy about eating are still present. I eat very well, even within severe restraints.

Please understand that I don’t mean that you should embrace a situation where you don’t have enough resources to live well. There are plenty of structural problems that require larger, outside solutions. But we all have some form of personal limitation to contend with, and I believe it’s better to embrace these limits and learn to live well within them.

Challenge:

This week, I urge you to think about the restrictions unique to your life. Brainstorm a way you could satisfy your needs despite the present constraint. As an extreme example, let’s say you want to be a professional ballet dancer. If you’re not an already-talented child taking ballet classes, this will probably never happen if we’re being strictly realistic. That’s a pretty firm limitation. But what about ballet appeals to you? If it’s the love of ballet itself, you can always take a class for adults or get season tickets to your local ballet corps. If you simply love dance in general, there are endless varieties of dance classes available -- many of them online, so geographical limitations won’t even apply. If you crave hearing an audience applaud your dancing, you could always take up competition ballroom dance. The trick is to identify your underlying needs and find alternative ways to satisfy them. I know that’s far simpler to say than do, but if you can keep an open mind and embrace a willingness to experiment, you can learn to live very well, even within tight boundaries.