Should We Draw Boundaries in Our Life?

People got a lot of styles to live in this world. Some set up a very high standard so that the standard can be their motivation to get their dreamy life; some just live following their heart and with no limitation or desire. As for me, I think we neither need to set up a high standard nor live without desire, we just need to draw lines to be a reminder as our lowest point. In that case, we neither have too much pressure of achieving the high standards nor be the worst people in the world. More important, everything in the world is changing all the time. Therefore, we all need boundaries in our life because the boundaries help stay away from the worst result and also help us make decisions when we are in a confusing dilemma.

We need boundaries to be as the separation of work and life so that people can get a great balance on both objective and subjective needs. In Claire McCarthy’s article “Dog Lab”, she feels very guilty not only because of killing a dog but also ignoring her own feelings. She states that, “I still needed to be the person I was before; I needed to be able to make some decisions without worrying about what a doctor would do.”(42) McCarthy’s life have changed a lot since she went to the medical school, she lives like an automation with scheduled routine, learning medical knowledge becomes the most important and motivated goal in her life, and no chatting time for her family or friends at all. In addition, she takes out her courage as a physician to do the dog lab, but she was disappointed in herself for doing the lab. She feels like that in order to satisfy hers objective needs, which is becoming an excellent medical school student; she has been ignoring her own subjective needs for a long time. That kind of her subjective needs is like his emotional feels or communications with family and friends. Then, she started thinking about a solution to achieve a great balance on both her objective and subjective needs: drawing boundaries.