The hardest thing for me is to know what I want. I always have competing desires that pull in different directions, and Im often unsure what to pick. The choices we make, we make because of reasons. When faced with a decision, each decision has its pros ad its cons. Life would be much easier if the choice were always clear. But the reality is that choices are rarely clear. Not important ones anyways.
Every important step in life can be associated with a decision. Your friends are a choice. The college you attend and your educational path in general is a choice. Your career is a choice. Who you spend your life with is a choice. It goes without saying that your choices are important. A question arises: Do the choices you make determine your character and who you are as a person, or do you make your choices because if the person you already are? The first option means that you can change who you are, and the second means you are who you are. I’m terrified that the second option, the idea that we are who we are, and we make our decisions based on who we are, and that theres nothing you can do about that… that terrifies me.
The fear I have is that all the poor decisions Iv’e made, I’ve made because I’m the kind of person who makes those poor decisions. Maybe I’m so set in who I am, it’s so engrained into my being, that theres nothing I can do. In light of my poor decisions, that scares me.
A lot of the time, because I’m faced with desires pulling me in every direction, in opposite directions, theres a debilitating feeling I get. I’m paralyzed, and the decision is that much harder to make. But i have to make a decision. The fear is making a decision and missing out on whatever the other option had in store.
A lot of this to me sounds like anxiety when I write it out, as in the kind of anxiety that someone with an acute anxiety disorder will have. And thats actually a comfort to me. That means something can be done. However you deal with anxiety.
Sometimes I think I need to get out of the little world in my head. Sure, I want to be happy, and sure, I need to look out for myself, but maybe i should look at decisions as affecting the world outside of myself. I’m selfish. I know that. The decisions I make end up being what I think are going to make ME happy. I should start and more often consider what’s going to make the world around me better as well. Maybe that’s, ironically, what will make me happy.
