Indecision

Posted on by
IMG_8572
I’m terrible for overthinking things.

I get an initial idea and then over analyse it to death.

Shall I? Shan’t I? Do I really need to? ‘What’s the point?’ Am I doing this because I want to or because I feel a need to….is one right and one wrong?

Should I NOT do it if the latter is true in case I’m in danger of getting a disorder?

And round and round I go.

I’d love to be more spontaneous, to just do it when I think about an idea rather than trying to cover all bases.

Obviously there’s a good side to considering pros and cons but in a lot of cases it can just suffocate who we are and what makes us feel alive.

Today walking the dog I saw a waterfall and my immediate thought was I wonder how cold it is and how it would feel to stand under it.
Simple.

But then the questions start and what my motives are, whether I should stop being stupid and just walk along the beach like normal people.

But I noticed the more I swayed towards the sensible, the more sedated I felt. Each time I started to walk away I felt somehow unaligned.

At this point the inner voice just says ‘just do it for fuck sake. By the time you’ve been titting about back and forth you could have done it, been dried and dressed. Now just bloody do it!’.

So I did, and it felt great.
It was cold, daft and it made me feel totally present and free from the last 30 minutes of indecision and mental fatigue that comes with it. 

Every time I came away to get dry, I’d quickly run back for another go simple because it made me feel alive, happy and totally present.
The dog was going mad and for 10 minutes there was nothing to think about.

There’s no easy fix for overthinking a situation. And making a snap decision isn’t always the best think to do.

Many of us have been trained over years to not do ‘what we want…or else.you get a whack’ from our parents, so we are wired to second guess our impulses at times.

In times like today, I try and think as an ‘old man’ version of myself talking to me and what he would say to me.
And the answer is always the same – ‘It’s not important. In weeks, never mind years to come, it won’t matter either way. Stop over thinking it and just do it’.
A reply from a reader –
I absolutely hear you, I passed a beautiful waterfall not too long ago and my whole spirit was like go in! I over thunk it and walked on just to feel heavy and subdued not to mention regret. I’m really happy you went for it mate and shared the experience, there’s definitely a lesson here to be learnt.

My reply to reader

For me I think It will perhaps always be difficult to differentiate between those times of indecision and whether I need to push past my fears and reservations in order to engage myself in a growing experience or whether I am at times slipping into a compulsive need to prove something to myself or gain significance from doing it.

Just today I was stood by a large rock pool locked in the trance of indecision as to whether to go in or not.

There’s no right or wrong answer but we just need to question why we are doing it, whether its for us or for instagram.

Whether we want to do it or feel compelled to.

Are we saying ‘I want to’, or are we saying I should do?”

We also have to ask whether it will change anything either way.

Or as I did today, to break the spell of indecision as quick as we can and act either way.

Today, after standing there for what seemed like 20 minutes of shall I shan’t I, I broke the trance by talking to myself like an impatient parent and saying ‘54321 – yes or no – quick which is it?!!’

And ‘NO’ snapped out of me as the natural answer.

I genuinely walked away feeling good.
Despite knowing this, tomorrow will be the same I’m sure.
I don’t know whether there’s a easy answer – outside all the BS ideologies. especially when we are alone trying to work it out as to what we should do in our own heads.
I would like to say something like ‘the lesson is to learn to listen to your spirit and act, but also learn to listen to your insecurities and be willing to walk away’……..I just don’t know it will ever be that easy in real life to differentiate between the two!. 😂😂

Leave a comment