You Are The Only Person Who Has All The Answers to Your Questions
you have all the answers.
The other day I'm sitting at a coffee shop, trying to do whatever it is I do all day, and this man and woman sit down beside me. They start to engage in what appears to be a very heavy conversation about another man who isn't there. I can hear them in spite of my headphones, which becomes increasingly more unfortunate for me as the conversation continues.
The gist of it was this: The woman (let's call her Judy) and the man (let's call him Sam) have a co-worker (let's call him Billy). This co-worker did something really horrible to Judy. Sam witnessed it. I believe the horrible thing Billy did was verbally abusive in some manner. I couldn't quite make out if Judy stood up to him or not, but she wanted to. I know the thing Billy did was horrible because she kept calling him a psychopath. I also know the thing Billy did was horrible because a SECOND woman (let's call her Susan) appeared almost out of nowhere and approached Judy and Sam to EXPRESS HER CONDOLENCES about the terrible thing that happened at (presumably) work.
Clearly Judy was involved in a not-so-great situation. So now she's talking to Sam. She's weighing out whether she wants to commit to a business partnership with Billy because that was the plan before this unfortunate event went down.
Does she continue her business relationship with Billy? Or does she walk away on principle?
👆 That, right there, is the simple question Judy poses to Sam approximately 8,234,023,498 times within the two-hours they graced me with their voices. At first, Sam just listened to Judy and confirmed what had happened to her was terrible. Then, in an attempt to probably free himself from this conversation, he tells her she should cut her ties. That's when she panics. "You think I should just leave everything I started just like that?!" she exclaims. She then creates every excuse in the book to defend her staying in a partnership with Billy. Sam backpedals. "Uh, no, not if you don't want to — you could also just put up with him for the duration of the project. You don't have to listen to me." "Well I trust your opinion," Judy says, "But it's just so hard because you've drawn such a firm line and I just don't know if I can be so black-and-white. The situation is more nuanced." "Okay, so it's nuanced," Sam says, continuing to backpedal because God-help-him-he-doesn’t-want-to-make-this-decision-for-her.
And then he hammers in his ambiguity with one final blow: "I will support you no matter what you choose to do."
Sam is a good guy. Sam really doesn't give a shit what Judy decides to do with her life because even if Billy is a blowhard a-hole, Judy is a grown woman and she's capable of making her own decisions.
IF ONLY JUDY KNEW THAT.
I mean, you guys, by the time I stood up to leave the coffee shop, I had heard what felt like hundreds of excuses from Judy on all sides of the equation. She had a very difficult choice to make, that is for sure. But continuing to throw her pros, cons, and questions up for Sam to analyze and answer FOR her was getting her absolutely nowhere. She was talking herself in circles to avoid having to make a call. It was clear she didn't want to take responsibility for her own decision. If she left, it'd be Billy's fault. If she stayed, it was for all the other myriad of excuses she made that DIDN'T ACTUALLY INCLUDE, "because I like the job" or "because I want to stay."
It took all the restraint I had not to stop her mid-sentence and say, "Listen, I don't know you, and I don't know exactly what kind of terrible thing happened—but I DO know that THIS GUY [pointing to Sam] has NO FUCKING IDEA what you should do." At that point Sam would start slow-clapping for me and I'd walk away triumphantly without any pushback from Judy. I'm sure. I rode home pitying Judy hard. Because she's trapped in a web so many of us fall victim to—the belief that ANYONE OUTSIDE OF YOURSELF HAS THE ANSWERS FOR YOU.
You are the only person who knows the answers to your questions.
And listen, I'm guilty of this, too! The only reason it resonated so deeply with me is because every time I have an insanely difficult decision to make I BEG the people around me to tell me what to do. I talk myself in circles, too. I weigh out what other people will think of me, I measure the pros against the cons, and I feel fear that I'm going to end up being responsible for a decision that hurts me in the long run.
I, too, have to remember that the only person who TRULY wants the best for me is me.
So this is a friendly reminder to trust yourself. Believe in yourself. Explore your own psyche to make the decisions that impact your life. Because they generally only impact you. Everyone else is just a Sam. They could care less what direction you travel. Take responsibility for your own course—even if it leads you astray, you're the only one who can find your way back, anyway.