Indecision
Does anyone else struggle with indecision? It's one of my biggest character flaws. It seems to affect so many parts of my life: from choosing what to buy at a store to choosing what to eat in a restaurant.
I think for me, indecision stems from a primal feeling that there is an optimal choice to every dilemma, a feeling that if I just think about it enough, I can figure out the absolute best thing to do. To get rid of indecision, I need to get rid of the illusion of perfection. Perfection is a myth! For one thing, better is relative. Better for you is not necessarily better for me, and even if it was, being perfect all the time is impossible, so why even set that as an expectation?
The part of me that wants to be perfect has a ready reply to this, however – "won't letting go of my perfectionism lead to mediocrity?? I don't want to be mediocre!" This all-or-nothing perspective is ultimately quite limiting. It's possible to be someone that cares deeply about improving and doing a good job while also being someone that is not consumed by making optimal decisions at every turn. I have to learn to thread the needle - to care, but not too much. A wise man once told me: "You have to hold your life like a bar of soap. Squeeze too hard, and it'll shoot out from your grip. The harder you're squeezing, the harder it is to hang on."
Are you squeezing the soap too hard? Let's work on relaxing our grip a bit more this week!