The Dangers of Dithering

Moving from yo-yo to go-go.

I’ll admit up front, that my idea of something taking an incredibly long time is about six hours. However, when it comes to big decisions involving large commitments of time, money and/or energy, I do a lot of yo-yo-ing.

The ups, the down’s– the tormenting indecision and fear of choosing unwisely. The proper balancing of long-term and short-term benefits. The pros and cons of giving up the familiar in exchange for the great unknown.

It begins with chronic hemming and hawing.

This is usually followed up with some form of paralysis by analysis.

And then I get sick. I wonder if it’s a sign. To do, or not to do? It’s exhausting. Well, actually, I am exhausting. It, whatever it may be, is simply an opportunity.

Just to be clear, the decisions I am referring to are the ones we are lucky to make. Fortunate decisions. Not life and death, Not the kind you have to make; rather the kind you are privileged to make.

In our family we are big believers in recycling these decisions.

We refer to it as the circular learning curve. Or our live and don’t learn philosophy. We have a bin of decisions we hem and haw over for months, maybe test out but ultimately decide not to change.

We then, resurrect them one to three years for reconsideration.

These decisions run the spectrum from moving houses, alternating school options, living in Italy for a year, quitting Splenda, beefing up our dinner options, meditating, etc.. We mean well, have good intentions but a somewhat dense memory.

However, this is not about that.

This is about our latest decision to stain all our hardwood floors grey and change the exterior of our house from a dark green and honey mountain house to a grey and white Nantucket beach house (minus the water views).

Frivolous, over-the-top, extravagant?

Depends on your point of view. Prior to doing it, I would have said, quite possibly yes! And that alone is reason for pause and possible brakes.

But here’s the thing: I couldn’t shake this restless need for change.

This constrictive, oppressive feeling I needed to shed the skin I’d outgrown, reinvent myself, crack the mold; make a new one.

No matter how I tried to reason my way out of it, tell myself I was being ridiculousness, my spirit wouldn’t hear it.

Every time I tried to buckle down and get real, my heart felt heavy, my body sore. And energy drained out of me like there was a giant leak in my bucket.

So, I said F that!

Let’s do it! Luckily, I have a remarkably supportive husband who gets it and is game for absolutely anything always. I thank my lucky stars for him every day.

I was afraid this superficial change would cost a lot, be an enormous pain and what if we didn’t even like it when we were done?

But some inner spark lit up inside me when I imagined moving forward and shut down when I thought about maintaining the status quo.

So, I listened to that.

Moving all our furniture and every little thing off every floor– nightmare. Having it cost less than we’d imagined– dream. The way it looks­– amazing.

But it’s the unintended ripple effect that makes this worthy of writing about.

The unexpected trickle up theory.

In this made-up theory of mine, if you are brave enough to do something your heart tells you to do, even when you don’t know exactly why, even when common sense would indicate otherwise, even when it is uncomfortable and inconvenient– something unexpectedly fantastical happens.

It is similar to a good trainer friend of mine it doesn’t really matter whether you exercise out of vanity or health everything is interrelated. The better you look the better you feel. The better you feel the better you look.

Each decision affects the whole.

The plate tectonics of your being shift if you willing to move in a heart-forward direction. Sure enough, throwing caution in the wind on this one choice inspired me to initiate a phone call, which opened other creative doors.

This inspired a rebirthing of several ideas that had been put on hold and shifted my intentions from accepting a certain level of creative complacency to supercharging it.

By releasing energy I had been hoarding out of fear of making a wrong choice it set into motion all kinds of possibilities that would otherwise have remained dormant.

Going with your gut has a way of opening up your heart.