I have always had an extremely rough time making decisions. Ever since I was little even buying something presented to my mind an irrevocable move in a particular direction.
I remember once as a child wanting… so badly… a particular Lego set. We got to the store and I was all ready to buy it when my parents saw that it contained a Lego ghost character. Well, ghosts were off limits and my dad immediately decided I could not buy it because of the occultic / satanic reference. So I decided I wanted to switch to a different set… and ended up getting something different. But the panic I felt at having to change my mind left me feeling almost ill. Did I really want the new set I was buying?
My parents had enacted a rule that we could not get something we wanted unless we waited three days to make sure we still wanted it. While on the one hand this was wise, I feel that these types of things my parents instilled in me created a self-doubting habit that exists with me to this day.
The point was clear: you are never fully sure about anything. Doubt your desires, doubt what you want, doubt whether it is good enough and not only that give yourself time to focus on those self-doubts.
Communion was a nightmare for me… primarily because of the time when the pastor would stand in front of us all and ask us to inspect our hearts to make sure there was any unconfessed sins and that we needed to take care of those before we were worthy of communion lest we be guilty of the “body and blood of the Lord”. I remember repeatedly having panic attacks at this point in the service because self-reflection and self-doubt had become such a huge part of my thought-process that I could never relax… I always knew there might be some hidden sin and that I had not reflected enough yet to be worthy of communion. Taking communion and not dying was always a relief. Sometimes I would run out of the service just to get away from the pressure and hopefully miss having to self-reflect.
Since a very young age self-doubt and self-reflection were instilled in me. Questioning my own motives and desires were just a way of life.
I want it to stop. This constant obsessing and “making sure” of everything has made me miserable more times than I can count. For all the effort to avoid making an unhappy decision it has simply made making any decision unhappy. And to make matters worse every decision I do make fills me with even more self-doubt because I end up doubting my motives or doubting whether it is what I “really wanted”.
And that is the crux of the whole thing… what was instilled with the goal of making me happy made me completely miserable. I feel all wound up tight like a spring, uncertain of nearly everything my own heart desires… weighing the options endlessly until it either makes me miserable or makes everyone around me miserable.
It’s almost as if making a solid decision and being really happy with it was wrong. Somebody had to be a little miserable or else somebody was sinning.
- Josh
