So I was talking to my psychologist friend last night. We were discussing psychological principles and theory...I know, yawn to most of you, but it is interesting to us. We laugh and joke around a lot also so the discussion was 15% psychological and 85% goofing around.
We were talking about several different psychological phenomena which resulted in him diagnosing me with Complicated Whatever. Which I found to be the most hilarious thing ever.
His assessment, last evening, was that I complicated whatever I was involved in...which is so true! Also pretty fucking hilarious. Sometimes I marvel at myself in how spun out I can be over something relatively simple and straightforward. I will never admit how much time I have spent trying to decide if I should buy a Peleton bike...
For example, recently I didn’t want to review something someone sent me to review because I was sure that the document would be at least 38 pages long...well when I actually opened the document and looked at it, it was only 7 pages long and took me no time at all to review. I put off for days what I could have handled in a 20 minutes. Complicated.
While we were laughing at his new diagnostic category, I realized that we all do this. Make things harder than they need to be...why?
As I fell asleep last night, I wondered why this new diagnosis explained so much for me...why do I always complicated whatever I am doing? Why is it that simple is never my first go to?
I woke up this morning to this thought...perhaps we complicate whatever we are doing or thinking about because we lack certainty. Doubt is such a complication producer. We are not certain how to handle things, what to do, what decisions to make and part of the process of deciding is to consider ALL the options. Make a pro/con list that considers every permeation of the possible results. Some of us do this about what new TV to purchase (not me, I just flip the coin) all the way to whether or not to leave our marriages, changes careers or date someone (Again, I flip the coin).
Doubt seems to be the great complicator. It is this uncertainty that we desperately try to defeat that makes us kind of make a mess of things. We so want to avoid making a bad decision or messing things up that we actually make things way harder than they need to be.
For me, I have to take time to sit with the varied and many different feelings I have about something or someone and sit with them until I can hear the voice of truth from all the competing voices clamoring to be heard. There are a lot of competing interests in my head and they all frequently believe that their way or idea should win out. COMPLICATED! I have to wade through the doubt until I get to the place of equanimity. Where I am ok with whatever solution comes. Often it comes down to two which is why the coin flipping is such a salvation. I just have to be ok with either decision. I don’t have to really like either of them, I just have to be willing to flip the coin then follow the action, yes for heads, no for tails. ALWAYS!
So my complicated whatever has resulted in me adopting and standardizing a coin flip to resolve doubt. I have a time tested history with the magic coin and its decisiveness. It has really helped me out of some tricky spots. It has always been true that I have never had a problem that was worse than my solution for that problem...sooooo, the coin gets me to another place immediately. I can take the action without involving me too much which is usually a good thing because as we have already ascertained...I complicate whatever!
This morning I rest easy with the notion that complicated whatever is a good thing to have. First of all, we all share it and that is a nice baseline to wake up to today.
Secondly, complications are part of every day life, now I know that there is no sense in trying to avoid them. They are here and they will remain. Ok!
Lastly, whatever is going on in my life is going to be complicated because I am me. I have never been simple or uncomplicated. It just isn’t who I am. I am a complicated whatever. And that makes me exciting and sometimes tedious. But regardless of the emotional wreckage I may cause in your life or my own, I have developed a manner of dealing with doubt that allows me to uncomplicate whatever is vexing me. Flip the coin. Get free from me.
Hey, that is a good mantra. It is simple. It is not complicated. So I say Whatever!
