I can’t quite pin down the exact moment I developed anxiety. It could have been during sophomore year of high school when I traded in my braces, bangs, and bad skin for unwanted attention because of my new, mature look. Maybe it was at age 27 when I was sexually assaulted. Or it had always been there since childhood and I just didn’t have the words to explain it. But I first labeled the feeling and admitting to experiencing anxiety around age 30. My anxiety stems from this need to be, look, and feel perfect. Every decision – no matter how small—is agonizingly painful to make. I tend to only see decisions in black and white or two extremes. What if I choose the “wrong” one? I worry I’ll feel trapped in a life-sentence of going down that one path.
In a recent conversation with a friend, we talked about how confident and sure everyone else seems to be in their decision to marry or find the “right” career for them. I ensured him that I think everyone else is just as scared as us. Maybe someone with zero anxiety does make decisions with more ease and assurance, but I think we are all scared. We marry because we meet the person who makes us FEEL safe enough or sure enough to try it. But no one is guaranteed that their marriage will last. Neither does a job or friendship or anything else in this life. Nothing is guaranteed. But finding that moment of bravery – taking that next step toward whatever it is you want for your life – means making a choice. Making no choice to move forward means you let fear (anxiety) win. We think that making no choice is better than the “wrong” choice, but how do you know which is wrong unless you try?
So what choice do you need to make? What’s holding you back from just picking one thing over the other? We exist in a time where we’re given too many endless options, which can also cause decision paralysis. We keep waiting to confirm that we’ve got the best version of a person, place, career, whatever. Our generation fears commitment – and not just regarding romantic relationships. We don’t want to commit to plans for fear of something better coming along. Yet we overcommit to things we should say no to out of fear of seeming lazy or lame or needing to always please others. We burn the candle at both ends until we’re anxious, sick, or too depressed to even show up.
My advice to this friend was to start making decisions that FEEL right to him. As a person who often feels anxious and unsure of my own decision-making skills, it’s easier to let other people decide for me. We let parents choose our career path; we let friends decide how we act, dress, and what we enjoy; we let society dictate everything else about what our life “should” look like because it’s easy. It’s uncomfortable to question the core of who you are as a person. Do you want to be anxious? Career-driven? Family-focused? Racist? Cruel? Free-spirited? Ignorant? You have the power to choose who YOU want to be. But you have to choose. You have to make daily choices that feel right for you. You can’t ask for permission to be who you really are. And you have to let go of the grip of perfectionism and worrying about how others will view the new you.
So decide. Today. Who do you want to be in the future and how do you work towards being that person? How can you make more decisions chosen not out of fear, but from self-love?
The path that just FEELS right— go there.