Make up your mind.

“I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

One thing about me? I am indecisive. It is top ten most annoying things about me. I recently had a job interview and I was asked what my weakness was and without hesitation I immediately mentioned my indecisiveness (of course taking care to emphasise how I am working on it). Funny enough, I had just been thinking about my indecisiveness before the interview so I had my answer ready to go. Nice looking out God.

Yesterday I was fed up with myself and had to ask myself what exactly my problem was. I had gone to get some cookies that I really had no business eating (I’m a sugar addict, send help). Even though this was my third time in a week getting these cookies, and I had been deliberating over the choice of cookie flavours all day before leaving my house, I still found myself at the cookie shop second guessing myself and asking the shop attendant to decide between two flavours for me. Even as she was bagging up the cookies and ringing up the order I had half a mind to ask her to make some changes. I finally made my decision and walked out of the shop completely insecure about my choices. I just felt uncomfortable. After walking on for about five minutes with this sinking feeling in my belly, I said to myself “girl what’s your problem? It’s a fecking cookie for goodness sakes. You’ve been here three times already, you should know what cookies you like by now. Even if you don’t like it so what? it’s just a cookie! Damn. You weirdo!” That’s what what I needed to hear (lol) and I immediately felt better and the sinking feeling was gone.

My indecision is tightly woven into the very fabric of my being and it drives me insane. Everything has to be second guessed. There are times when my heart screams yes! and I don’t have to question anything but those times are few and far in between. I don’t know what it is I am so afraid of. I am afraid of making the wrong decision, that much is clear, but most of these decisions are not even a matter of life and death, they literally do not matter. Yet I waste precious finite time agonising over them. It is infuriating. I need to learn how to manage this. Most of the time when I am being indecisive I am not making any concrete thinking or weighing the options with any intelligence; I am simply just being indecisive and stressing myself out.

What are you so afraid of? What are the consequences of buying a cookie that you do not like? It’s flour and sugar, you will most likely eat it all. If I was a therapist here is the point I would try to make a link between my fear of making mistakes and some repressed trauma from childhood Are you afraid that your parents made a mistake in marrying each other and making you thus injecting in you this abject fear of making decisions out of fear that you make the wrong one and ruin your life and possible end humanity as we know it? For a while my indecision made sense to me; of course I have to spend half an hour deciding what to eat at this restaurant only to end up ordering the wrong thing anyway because if I don’t like my food then I will have wasted my money and not be satisfied. Then I am hungry and without my money. But it just grew and grew and took over my life like a venom coursing through the bloodstream. In many ways I feel like a child who has been ushered into adulthood without any guidance and I need my mummy (or some other responsible adult) to make decisions for me. The fact that it is EYE who have to make these decisions is bewildering.

This also means I have an issue with execution. I want to do something, and I have the ideas but I just let them float about in my head without actually doing anything. For example, I volunteered to plan social events for my work team. I sat with these ideas for ages not daring to make any decisions on my own. I needed someone else, preferably a higher up in the team, to discuss the ideas with and to get their backing before going on to plan the event and notify the whole team. I could not bring myself to decide for the team; if possible I wanted to ask each person what they wanted and get a general understanding before even sending out an email. Again I am like a child that needs mummy to hold my hand. Then I got two emails from other people on the team with their executed social plans: “Hey guys we are planning a bowling outing. Let me know if you’re interested!” Simple pimple. I felt so bad, the way I do when I feel I have failed at a task and someone else has had to take over. I imagine someone rolling their eyes saying “this girl is not forthcoming with any ideas let me just go ahead and plan something.”

My indecision is never more evident than on my birthday. Oh my word. I want to do so many things but will my friends be able to make it will it be convenient for them will they be willing to spend this much money on my birthday will they….? The result of which is that I end up being incredibly stressed out by my approaching birthday and sometimes I find myself with no birthday plans, just alone and depressed. A few years ago my friend said “Just tell us what you want to do for your birthday and we will let you know if we can participate.” Those words have stuck in my mind. I did go ahead and share my plans and they turned up, spent the money and I was happy. The crazy thing is that when my friends have plans I always show up, so I don’t know why I run myself ragged trying to decide on what is best for everyone without even first letting people know what I want.

Recently I went house hunting and found one that was alright and ticked most of my boxes. I could have made a decision there and then but of course I had to “sleep on it” and by that I mean not make a decision and hope the universe somehow makes it for me. It was not until the estate agent called me to say the flat had been taken that I started to have real regrets. I still have not able to find any place as good, and I am completely fed up with my current place. I was not making constructive points about what I needed to know to make a decision about the flat. I was just hmmmmn I don’t know. It still pisses me off to think about it. In this case the reason for my indecision was “What if I settle and something better comes along?” A stupid thought, given that I had been searching for ages and hadn’t found anything.

In the job interview, I said that I am learning to deal with my indecision by first carefully considering all possible outcomes and the consequences of each. In effect, what is the worst that could happen? I also said that I need to communicate more with those around me, rather than wallowing in isolation. Most of these decisions do not need to be made by myself alone, there is nothing wrong in seeking advice and help from others. A problem shared is a problem half solved, as they say. As with most of my afflictions, I know the solutions; it is just difficult to fully extinguish one’s neuroses.

I read somewhere that indecision is a decision, just make a decision and stick with it!

“Having made the decision, do not revise it unless some new fact comes to your knowledge. Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.”
Maimonides

Self-care

I have started this post so many times in my head, and it is not clear why exactly I find it difficult to sit down and write, given that this is all I want to do. Now that I have finally settled down to write, I don’t know what to write about.

I have been out and about lately; the days of working entirely from home seem to be over, and though at first I resisted this and was so aggrieved, I have to admit that my room had become an isolating prison which I needed to escape from. I spent three days last week in the office, and it was nice to be around other people. The introvert in me is shaken.

When I first thought about writing this post, it was because I was in a much better mood than I had been and was practicing self care (aka eating like a rabbit). I therefore wanted to write about the little acts of self-care that had made me happy.

I came across a BuzzFeed India video on YouTube and then went down a rabbit hole of their videos which largely centre around Indian food. Needless to say, I developed a severe craving for Indian food, particularly Parotta- a supposedly delicious South Indian bread. It looked so good (and stressful to make!) in the videos that I had to have it. I spent the weekend surfing through the food delivery apps searching for Parotta. I eventually found one place and placed an order. Of course I couldn’t just order the Parotta on its own, so I added some lamb biryani and butter chicken- which were also on my cravings list thanks to Buzzfeed India. Well I was on my way to pick up my order (I ain’t paying no delivery fees) when I received a call from the restaurant with the devastating news that they were out of Parotta and would I like some naan instead? Ugh. The only reason I made the order was because I wanted the parotta, now I was stuck with the rest of the order. I went to the supermarket and saw “Paranthas” which are the North Indian version of Parottas. Listen, I only found out about the South India/North India divide (?) a couple of years ago when an Indian colleague mentioned that she was staying with a South Indian family. India is a big country with a billion people so it should not be surprising that there is a vast level of diversity, but it was still interesting to learn about just how diverse India is, especially when it came to food. We are used to saying “Indian food” “Chinese food” without any thought that these popular food items are not representative of the whole country. Anyway I bought the paranthas and went back to pick up my order. There the man told me that I had to call 24 hours in advance if I wanted parotta. I am not surprised because it took an age on YouTube (it has to rest for 8 hours at some point). I went home and tried some of the biryani and found it to be so dry; I tried the butter chicken and did not like it at all. I chided myself for getting carried away by YouTube and now being stuck with food that I did not want. The naan was delicious though. The next day however, I decided to use some of the sauce and yoghurt that came with the rice, and eh voila that made all the difference. For the butter chicken I watched another buzzfeed India video, one of the girls ate a butter chicken wrap, which was the first time it occurred to me that it did not have to be eaten with rice. Just like that the order was saved. I enjoyed the rest of the biryani with the sauce and enjoyed the butter chicken with the parantha. That made me happy.

What else did I do that made me happy? Oh yeah, I went to see a play. I had to go into London for the first in person work training in over two years. I was not going to waste a trip into London so I also made arrangements to see a play and when I checked and saw that the National Gallery was just minutes away from the theatre I added that to my plans as well. The training was dull, but there were nice snacks and lunch was good (never thought I would enjoy tuna but the tuna croquette was excellent) so I was happy. The training ended early so I had time to explore- I spent some time at the National Gallery until it closed and then walked around taking in the sights and looking for somewhere to eat before the play. I settled on Chipotle because I like burritos and was running out of time to eat so just did not need any fuss. The burrito was alright, but the play? It was excellent. Muy bonito. I chose to see Dear Evan Hansen and will maybe do a separate post on it. All in all, I was happy. Happy that I chose to do something fun on a weekday. Happy that the play was so good and worthwhile. Happy that I got out of my room. I also really liked my hair and outfit that day so I was feeling myself all around.

This was maybe two weeks ago now. I should have written the post when the feelings were still fresh so as to capture the feelings. My spirits are still relatively high, but the familiar anxiety and irritation is creeping in. But that’s for another post.