Friday, March 4, 2011

What to do when in Doubt

As all human beings currently inhabiting this world, we are all riddled with doubt. I´m thinking of doubt that´s situation-based, the kind you get when you are in the mid of a predicament that's making you question yourself, your efforts and your understanding of a situation.What I´m Not talking about is the kind of doubt you get when you have a mid-life crisis... or the kind you get when you don´t understand a philosophical problem/question.

Nono. I´m talking about the mundane kind. The kind involving love, loss, car-parking, work, broken-condom-syndrome, etc...
Here are five easy, manageable, steps you can look to when in one of the above situations:

1. Don´t panic.
Fundamental law of the universe and everything. 
Whenever a situation arises that makes you question yourself, the first rule of engagement is to not panic, no matter how absurd the situation is. Time often resolves the situation for you. If you push the situation slightly away from yourself and take a position as a third party viewer, you will notice that time works in your favor. In this way, through observation and cooling down, you can act according to what the situation demands of you.  
Forget about the towel though... that doesn´t matter. 

 

2. Never act in anger.
Easier said than done, yet it explains itself. Nothing productive has ever come as a direct result of anger, so whenever you fruitlessly try to understand a specific situation and it begins to undermine and frustrate you, take it out on a pillow or the internet, before you address a predicament. 


3. Motivation.
Some of the more normal tendencies whenever in doubt, is to question your motivation. "WHY am I doing this? WHAT am I getting out of it? WHEN is the pizza arriving, and WHY did we order vegetarian?"
In this scenario it is best to just understand yourself as the power that drives the situation forward. When you have this perspective of things (you as the ultimate force), all you have to do is to let pros and cons weigh themselves out, and act according to the answer you get from them. If there are more pros than cons: Press forward! -without regards to the neighboring old woman, or the police knocking on your door asking you to turn down the volume. If there are more cons than pros: Stop doing what you are doing and leave while the rest of the gang is waiting for the vegetarian-abomination that they want you to chip in on.



4. Distractions.
Lets just face the obvious. Some times doubt can make you go mad and make you want to forget about sh*t.
Whenever you are in a predicament where the doubt involves another person, you have to be especially aware of the instructions in this list. Some situations involving doubt might be more hurtful than others. One effective way of dealing with the doubt in these scenarios, is to surround yourself by people. Alone you have unlimited access to thoughts, which some times might serve against its masters best interests. When this happens, friends, people, music, movies, books, work, work-out, food and alcohol are good substitutes for a working brain.
Some of the best places to find all of these things at the same time are either bars, cafès, work, gyms or libraries.



5. Analyze? Time is what matters.
If doubt involves treachery, unfaithful-people, want or lack-there-of, the best thing to do is to ask your self as few questions as possible. When it all comes down to the marrow of things, there is just one thing that matters: do you care? This is as fundamental as it gets. Is the stress of it is messing up your personal life, you should just drop it, and find another problem to solve. Though most times its best to analyze. Not to recap or anything, but according to my understanding of doubtful situations its often paranoia that's making people think and act the way they do. Using time to your advantage solves most of everything, but while you are at it, it might be a good thing to just think; "Why am I in doubt about this? Its probably going to be awesome, jumping of this cliff into a pool full of pig-poop. I should just do it and claim the glory!"... A stupid metaphor, but that's the general spontaneous reaction to any situation.




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NOTE: I do not take responsibility for any actions taken on the basis of the steps written here.


Have a nice day.

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