What if you did X, instead of Y? Would you get burned or be better of?
Making choices shapes us. Our present state of happiness is the sum of the choices we’ve made till now. Had I not gone to the UK for summer before my first year of Poznan University of Economics, I might have never fallen in love with the idea of studying here. Had I not started studying here, I might have not shaped my character so much free of limits and full of not-give-a-fuck’s. Had I not started building my business few years ago and failing (and raising) so many times, I might have never been that strong and certain about what I want to do in my life, for people around me.
Every single moment of your life you must choose from a number of alternatives. What you choose determines where you will end up. That’s why it’s surprising for me why so many people stick with their wrong choices, not trying to change anything; the job which they hate, their partners who do not respect them and so on, and so forth.
But because life wouldn’t be exciting enough, sometimes we need to let go of something seemingly beautiful, where each component seems to be perfect… apart from that one small piece missing. As if everything is al right. I should feel lucky to have/be this much – we try to convince ourselves over and over again like some Arthur Schopenhauer’s groupie. We fight with our internal selves, our desires and dreams, trying to kill them like some autoimmune disease.
But that’s NOT what you want. We may have problem with admitting it. We may try to suppress our doubts / postpone our decisions, but deep down, inside of us, we know what we need and what is good for us.
Decisiveness is about risk taking and most humans avoid risk. Everyone chooses a jumping off point for committing to a decision based on their comfort level with risk versus the size of the bet and their judgement of the probability of being right / comfortable with the outcome. It is the fear of the consequences of being wrong and the tendency to judge ambiguous information as being insufficient to predict a “good enough” probability of success that creates hesitation. How can we know if we quit this perfectly ‘fine’ office job, we will find better colleagues, environment and $$ all in one? How can we know if the next person we meet will understand us as good as the current one, will laugh at our jokes and will be able to finish our sentences?
We can’t. And that’s what scares a shit of us.
The big reason is fear; fear of failure (So much praised by the American society, so much avoided by the European one); fear of scarcity (Most overused technique of the salesmen); fear of self-loathing (Hello religion); fear of public embarrassment (Hello societal pressure); fear of losing control etc. (Think falling in love e.g.); fear of missing out (famous FOMO) etc.
All of these questions, all these doubts will only eat up your energy instead of helping you. They will only slow you down. They will paralyze you. The more we hesitate, the more it will hinder us from taking any sort of decisions. The fear guides you.
But all of a sudden, all of your worries, all of your sorrows and all of your regrets suddenly vanish into thin air within a few seconds when you start to realize one really important thing:
Nothing really lasts forever. No decision that you take today will last forever. Every decision is temporary. Every decision you take will only last until you have to take the next decision. If you don’t take it, then you are left to external factors (e.g someone else will take it for you).
Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you. Who keeps company with the wolves will learn to howl and so on, so all the negative people and things should go to the left, to the left, and you should focus at all costs on keeping what makes you a stronger, better person. Even if it means long cry nights and experiencing withdrawal symptoms of security and pleasant habits.
Had my mom never met my coward, unknown (to this day) father, I simply wouldn’t be here. But since I’m here, I am going to use to the maximum my chance to create, to inspire, to love and to learn to let go.
To me, to exist means to make conscious choices. Good or bad, but importantly, taking the risk with the hope of securing a small chunk of happiness.
When you start listening to your own self and treat it with respect, suddenly everything starts to be clear like some dummy puzzles, and you realise that this is how it was supposed to be.
This way feels good.
Feels right.
