It Depends Where You Stand.
Several years ago, I was going through a very tough time in the office I worked in. While I tried to hide it, patients could see that I was struggling and they would ask “Are you doing ok?”.
I would hesitate when answering, because the truth was that life seemed to be falling apart, and at the same time coming together. I eventually settled on an answer that I felt was honest.
“Ask me in a year, maybe I’ll know”.
Because at the time, I couldn’t see if I was making the wrong choices, or the right ones. My perspective was amiss, because I was standing in the middle of the storm, where I could see neither the ending nor the beginning.
When that happens, it’s very easy to lose your bearings and see everything in a way that doesn’t reflect the truth. I was lost in a reality that was confusing, painful and completely out of focus.
And in some ways, I still don’t know the answer.
Now and then we are called upon to make choices that have such a long-term effect on our lives that we’ll never truly know if we made the right choice, or the wrong one.
Decisions where the outcome is never a solid black or white, but a gray that defies definition down through the years. Instead of a clear understanding of what we should have done, we are left trying to manage the outcome of what may have been a mistake or a blessing in disguise.
So we are left to wonder, and try to figure it out for ourselves.
I think it’s made harder when the outcome isn’t the easiest to define either. A great outcome can make your decision seem like the right one, and a terrible outcome can make it seem like the worst choice you ever made, but at least you know. When the outcome is a mixed bag, it’s so easy to second guess yourself and imagine how a different choice could have resulted in an amazing ending.
But even that is just your imagination, there’s no way to know for sure.
Sometimes, all you can do is acknowledge that you made the decision, learn from it what you can, and move on. That can be really tough, because it requires us to give up our desire for certainty, and accept the messy, crazy, unimaginable and often frustrating nature of the reality in which we reside. I find that the more I can let go of the need to know everything, the easier it is to make choices going forwards.
But easier doesn’t necessarily mean easy, just less hard.
And in the end, that’s just how life works out. There are decisions that are easy, there are decisions that are less than hard, and then there are the ones that tear at your soul, wringing out your heart as you struggle to understand how to move forward in a storm that engulfs you.
Sometimes all we have are bad choices, but we still have to choose, trying to find the lesser of all evils in the maelstrom of possibility before us.
If you are struggling with a choice today, you have my sympathy. Just know that all you can do is your best, with what you know right now.
Make the choice that brings you the most peace, and rest in the knowledge of your truth.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings