Doubt: Water Lilies and Hurricanes
Every uncomfortable visitor offers us the chance to know ourselves better
Anyone can write an inspiring post or caption about the bravery one has to muster to exit a harmful job or relationship. And power to them! But what about the follow-up? What does it tend to look like for that person 6 months down the line? The hope is that they are, of course, happy. That they are satisfied with their decision, and that, each day, they receive a little sign from the Universe that affirms the choice that they made was the right one for them.
How often do we assume that life instantly gets better after leaving toxicity?
How often do we assume that people become successful because they believed in themselves the whole time?
How often do we assume that the right decision feels right at all, or that the right decision leads to the end of want?
It’s not that it’s shameful to make these assumptions or to have these hopes. It is so rare that we get to hear the truth from folks who are struggling to accept their own decisions, that it becomes easy to believe that “better” and “success” look one way—usually absent of doubt. It isn’t neat and tidy to explain it when it’s complicated, and it makes for a longer and more ambivalent story. The message, too, that we “should” be happier now, or that the absence of faith is somehow a personal failing, makes for a pretty good silencer.
Did I make a mistake in leaving the soulless, corporate job that offered me a cozy salary, benefits, a retirement? Am I perpetuating my own struggle by holding onto virtue over security? Every so often I miss that old friend I ended my relationship with…was I wrong to cut the cord? Was moving away to a new place foolish? Was I too hasty? Was I reckless? Was I shortsighted? Is the project I am working on going to be valued by others? Was…was I wrong? Am I doing this life the right way? Do I even know what I am doing at all?
Sometimes external validation, reassurance and support helps. Sometimes it doesn’t. Perhaps this is partly due to the fact that doubt doesn’t always ask the most apt question. And of course it doesn’t. Doubt is a tangent of fear, and fear is here to keep us safe and insulated, which can have its benefits. One thing I can trust fully is this: great teachers and creators have broken this ground before. They feel it, too.
It is not eloquent or unique in the slightest to say it, but it is true: decisions are hard. Decisions of every shape and texture are difficult. Creative decisions, down to which size brush to use, or which hue to pick, where to start. Practical decisions, like what to do for money, where to live, the people you want to be surrounded by. What to eat for dinner. How to spend a day. How to use our gifts. Barry Schwartz, a psychologist with a special interest in decision-making, wrote this in the book The Paradox of Choice: “Learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder. And learning to choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder still, perhaps too hard.” Another point that Schwartz makes is that, as much handwringing and brow perspiration we do in decision-making, we experience just as much anguish—if not more—when we are not given the freedom to choose at all. This underlines the fact that the typical person’s relationship with choice, and with doubt, is complicated. How could we not get stuck sometimes in dissatisfaction and uncertainty?
We grieve the choices we do not make. We grieve the choices make, even when they are beneficial. We grieve the time spent in indecision. We grieve the responsibility of choice and the absence of choice. We grieve the fact that we cannot know where our paths will lead. We are afraid of wasted effort. We are afraid of wasted life.
I said earlier that doubt asks the wrong question, but I do believe in its power to lead us to the right one. Schwartz writes: “Knowing what’s good enough requires knowing yourself and what you care about. So: think about occasions in life when you settle, comfortably, for ‘good enough’. Scrutinize how you choose in those areas, then apply that strategy more broadly.”
Could it be that doubt points our attention to the things that feel most important to us? Could it be that it lets us know, especially, when we are not aligned with what is most important? Could it let us know when we’re demanding perfection from ourselves, as it did for Monet? What could it be saying about belonging, and the stipulations we feel—or create—for being accepted or valued?
Here is another quote that I love very much, by Ocean Vuong: “I was loitering on the edge for so long, never thinking that I had the courage to do it, and I still feel very hesitant all the time about whether I belong here, whether I should be doing this. I’ve learned that doubt is a source of energy. You don’t always have to be certain. We live in a culture that fetishizes certainty. ‘What’s your stance? What’s your position?’ As a writer, luckily, I just have to have questions, and I get to build a landscape where I get to explore them. We’re complicated. We are hurricanes in a way, you know?”
If you’ve experiencing doubt or dissatisfaction in your life, what do you sense the underlying question of it was? What has it told you about your passions? What has it told you about place? What did you learn about the values you used to make your decisions? What was it, really, that you were second-guessing, after all?
What is your own hurricane like?
Take care,
Kit
Teachers
Highlights:
“One thing we have to do is take up an apprenticeship with sorrow. We have to become familiar with its terrain, its ground, what it asks of us. You know, where it takes us. We’re complete strangers to grief except when it smashes through the door…”
“Grief is not just an emotion, it’s a core human faculty. And without that faculty or without that skill set, we won’t know how to show up and stay present to our lives or those that we care about.”
“Often the Western culture we’re in, or industrial culture, is very much like, ‘I did it. Now, what’s next? Let’s move on. This is what progress is.’ I know many people that can feel a lot of self-blame, like, ‘Something is fundamentally wrong with me, that I can’t move forward and feel fine.’”
“They apologize for not progressing. I say, let’s disavow that as a goal. Soul doesn’t give a shit about progress. It wants to feel fully entertained, that of what’s possible in the terrain of soul will be welcomed: grief, tenderness, sadness, loneliness, longing, beauty, imagination, creativity, you know, friendship. All of the things that matter to soul, if we just notice that, our lives begin to get much fuller, much richer. Then, the idea of progress becomes less and less fascinating. You know, again, I think progress rises out of the feeling of emptiness. We’re always trying to get to some place better. As if where we are, what was is no good, not enough.”
Catalysts
In the above podcast, Francis Weller places deep importance on keeping grief “warm”, or continuing to engage with it, to be in relationship with it, to keep it moving.
I recently learned about Postal Service for the Dead, which is “an ongoing, collective project where people send letters to anyone in their life who has died. Birthdays, death days, anniversaries, holidays, or seemingly random days can all spark grief.” As an avid supporter of the handwritten letter, I deeply appreciate that an important facet of this project is to complete the ritual of addressing, applying postage, and releasing the words into the ether. To participate, please read the symbol privacy system explained on the website, and send to the address provided.
If you love the letter idea and have something to get off your chest, but don’t have anyone in particular to write to, did you know that PostSecret still exists?
Other places to find me:
Website
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