Categorization isn't enough

I recently learned that you shouldn’t eat or drink anything for 30 minutes after you’ve brushed your teeth- something about how the toothpaste’s fluoride is coating your teeth and you don’t want to rinse it off with anything. Several times since then, I’ve found myself forgetting exactly how long ago I brushed my teeth and stressing about when exactly I could start drinking and eating things. (Was it 20 minutes ago? 25? Ok… surely it had to have been at least 30 minutes ago. I must be good. Maybe I’ll wait another 5, just to be safe.)

I realized that this was kind of silly. It’s not like at 29 minutes and 59 seconds I’m going to instantly ruin all of the hard work my brushing just did if I swallow a sip of water, but that same sip of water is 100% ok 1 second later. Sure, waiting 15 minutes might be too few, but as long as I keep the general principle in mind and do my best to let the toothpaste sit for around 30 minutes, I’ll be doing good enough. Why let the perfect be the enemy of the good?

I think this is related to a general tendency for people to categorize things that are inherently continuous into discrete bins. A simple example is age cutoffs, for basically anything. 17 years and 11 months old? Nope, can’t vote. 18 years and 1 day old? Oh yeah, you picked up all the wisdom you need in that last month: we’re ready for you come election day.

What is the primary purpose of age cutoffs like this? Fundamentally, they represent a sort of shared understanding that people past this age are now capable of having certain responsibilities and/or privileges thrust upon them, such as the right to vote or consume alcohol. Of course, we know that not every 18 year old or every 21 year old is ready to vote/drink, and there are undoubtedly people under those ages who most people would agree are responsible enough to be afforded those rights, but these cutoffs represent a practical way for society to ensure that people are afforded certain rights when they’re ready for them. Another example might be speed limits- it’s not like driving 1 mph above the limit automatically means that you’re taking an unacceptable risk or posing a great danger to society, but pragmatically we have to ensure that people drive responsibly and speed limits ensure legible guidelines for people to follow.

I think it’s important to recognize that these kinds of binary thresholds are part of the map and not the territory. That doesn’t mean that they’re bad! You’re probably better off sticking to the “right” side of the dividing line most of the time: autocratically deciding that you’re ready to drink when you’re 16 is probably a bad call. But you should keep in mind that determining which category you’re in (ready to drink or not, fine to drive above the speed limit or not, ready to eat/drink after brushing or not), is only half (or less) of the battle. 

Here’s another example. Assume you’re dieting and have a bit too much to eat one day. You run some numbers and realize that you’re probably above your caloric budget for that day- just by a small amount of calories, but definitely above. 

Plenty of people who’ve found themselves in the above position (read: me, many, many times) decide that if they’re eaten just a little too much, they might as well eat a lot more. It sounds incredibly stupid when I put it like that, but if you’ve been there, you probably know what I mean. An unsuccessful diet day might as well turn into a fun food day if there’s no way you can meet your goal. But consider your current situation and your likely future situation. Right now, you’re maybe 5-10% away from where you want to be. If you decide to go all in and have an all-out “cheat day”, you’ll quickly find yourself considerably further than that. But in both cases, you’re in the same category. In both cases, you’ve failed.

What I’m trying to make clear is that there are degrees of failure as well as degrees of success. If you drink water only 29 minutes after you brush your teeth, sure, you failed, but only by a tiny amount. There’s nothing gained by beating yourself up about a minuscule error like that. 

Figuring out which category your actions fall under (legal/illegal, healthy/unhealthy, moral/immoral) is important, but don’t forget to locate yourself within the category as well.