I don’t have to be right, I only have to be me.
Do you ever feel anxious? I think all of us do at some time in our lives, depending upon circumstances. Maybe we’re facing a test at school, or in our profession. Maybe it’s a difficult conversation with a family member that could turn out to be the start of a troublesome period of your relationship.
Or maybe it’s just something small and simple, like a decision that could change the course of the rest of your life :)
And you fear getting it wrong.
Not just wrong in the ‘going from an A to a B’ type of wrong, but more like the ‘this could change the entire course of the rest of my life’ wrong. A wrong so profound that you think that the earth should stop spinning for a moment, and the birds go silent. Where the stars should go out and both heaven and earth mourn the moment of your decision.
Because some decisions seems just that momentous.
But here’s a little secret. 99.9% of the time, they’re not. Because the really hard choices aren’t usually between something good and something bad – they are the easy choices, the ones you make so deep in your soul that it’s never a conscious choice that you’re aware of.
No, the really soul burning ones are mostly a choice between two good or two bad choices.
And like it or not, you have to choose.
Many years ago I struggled with a very difficult decision. In the end I made a choice that was to change my life, and cost me almost 10 years of sadness and difficulty. The outcome still affects me today.
Yet looking back, with all the hindsight I posses, I’m still not sure I made the wrong choice. The alternative could have been better, but it also could have been a lot, lot worse.
The truth is, I’ll never know what I should have chosen, and I’m becoming ok with never knowing.
Because unless you think that your life is one straight line, a perfect linear absolute laid out in front of you, there comes a point when you realize that life is about switching tracks, and trying to find the one that works best for you.
And in that one sentence lies the answer to all of your difficult choices, all those moments where you wondered which way to go.
You simply have to pick the one that most authentically feels right for you.
Now please understand, I’m not advocating narcissism here. Right for you may be the one that you feel is the choice you can live with that will benefit someone you love, even while making your life more complex.
That’s ok, as long as you are clear on why you are making it, and making that choice of your own free will, having cleared out as many latent emotional traumas as you can.
Because when you realize that the ‘right choice’ is the one that fits you best, it’s no longer a matter of ‘right and wrong’ with consequences to rock the universe. Instead, it’s just a question of which is the better fit for the person you are in your soul.
Realizing that you will never get them all right, all you can do is feel which one resonates best with your heart and mind, and then choose that way, and give it all you have.
Most of the time, we can make our choices work out, and if we can’t, well then we’ve learned something that may be of use in the future. As long as you learn something, it wasn’t a failure, just a lesson in what not to do next time.
I’d like to leave you with a phrase today that so touched me at a time in my life, and which has helped me make decisions going forwards.
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced’.
May you find peace, love, joy and happiness in your experience, and may we sit one day and talk about it together.
I’d love to hear your story.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings