Which way to go?
If it’s a relationship, are you caught up in “relationship ambivalence”? It’s good but not great, and so you spend hours a day agonizing over the decision: should I go or stay?! Your mind is like a battlefield with opposing forces shouting out all the reasons their side should win. You make yourself nuts, and your stomach churns in anxiety as day after day passes (or even years!) with no decision at all. You STAY because that is the default mode. Generally speaking, it takes less courage than leaving because you can convince yourself that you are still thinking things over. Really, it’s just indecision rearing its ugly head and making your life far more stressful than it needs to be.
Perhaps you have a lifelong habit of indecision: should I wear this outfit or that one? Should I cut my hair or let it grow longer? What about changing the color of my hair? What if I make a mistake…. Ah ha! That’s at the bottom of all indecision: the fear that you’ll make the wrong choice and be stuck irrevocably with your bad decision.
The stress and waste of energy — not to mention all the time wasted and the goals left unachieved — mount up quickly when you have formed the habit of being slow to decide. Whether it manifests in a restaurant as you keep the others at the table waiting while you agonize over what to order, or whether you put your own happiness on hold by being unwilling to choose a relationship, a job, a course of action… the end result is that you are not really living a purpose-filled life. Face it – you’re not, are you?
I know what it’s like to be filled with ambivalence, and it sure is exhausting, isn’t it? I spent many years fearful of making a major lifestyle choice, worrying what others would think and so on. I SHOULD have been “worrying” what my own soul would think as I wasted my precious time on this planet fussing over choices instead of quickly making decisions and moving forward.
While you watch the video –The Clash performing “Should I Stay or Should I Go” — think about what decisions you are avoiding… and make a commitment to your own happiness that TODAY you will make a decision, and then you will move forward with the next action step.