Ever since I came across the sort of pop psychology metaphor "boundaries" several years ago, I've felt a little out of sync with it. And when I took some time to ask myself why, I realized: the word "boundary" makes it feel to me like this practice is about setting up prohibitions, all-or-nothing barriers. Like: "don't cross this border and step on my land!"

But my usual way of thinking about this concept is: what does this living, working system (or interconnected system-of-systems) need in order to function well? Sure, sometimes we need to prohibit certain activities or even particular entities. But, often, in my experience of biological or mechanical or other systems, a system often needs regulation rather than prohibition.

We need moderation: neither too little nor too much water, money, etc. Breathing or preventive maintenance in a cadence, with its frequency in a certain range. Balances -- salt and fat and protein and fiber and sugars and micronutrients, etc. Sequencing -- laying down a protective barrier makes it ok to then do a thing that will cause friction. Stuff like that. Oversight checks and thresholds for alerts, like, "the director gets a heads-up about expenses over $5.000" or "if an animal has not breathed in 90 seconds it starts feeling anxious and that wakes it up." And so on.

So, in interpersonal systems, that might be like:

• I need somewhat more hours alone, and I need that to happen every month.
• When [person] complains to me, I need that to be balanced with consideration/compliments.
• I've reached my current limit on strangers talking my ear off about [this topic], so I'm going to excuse myself right now and go talk with someone else.
• When I get home, I need 5 minutes to do my putting-things-in-the-right-places stuff before I can answer non-urgent questions. If you interrupt me before I'm done, I may be brusque and ask you to wait.
• If you make an appointment you need me to be at, I need you to put it on the shared calendar and add me so I get an email notification. Otherwise I may not be there.

So the metaphor in my head isn't that I'm setting new "boundaries"; it's more like I'm noticing where the system's at risk of getting eroded, depleted, stuck, and then coming up with ways to protect or improve it. Perhaps a good word for this category of practices, for me, is "regulations" -- not in the sense that they're mandatory policies, but in that they are ways I try to accommodate what's happening and make it smoother.

Overall, if I'm realizing something isn't working, I often try to think along the lines: "assuming this other person's needs are valid, what needs to happen in our system(s) so that this need can be addressed without me/us getting battered? while I get my own needs met too, not just RIGHT now, but in a sustainable way?"

I have not addressed a huge range of adjacent topics here. What if the other person's needs are not valid? and; This metaphor might help me think about what boundaries to create, but what about enforcing them? and: Given that it can be quite sticky to create and enforce boundaries with one's most cherished friends and family, much as it's hard to decipher and trace a legacy system and get users of that legacy system users to migrate to a new interface, how can one most gracefully encourage and manage that migration? and; Isn't this a rather impressively oblique way to come around to recognizing one's own needs as legitimate and defending them accordingly, Sumana?

Regardless, this chunk of thinking has proven useful to a few friends, so, here you go.