Choose Your Own Adventure

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

Nicky sets down the embarrassingly piddly weights and shakes out her trembling arms. From the mirror, a figure making their way to the cable machine behind her catches her eye. Oh! The hot guy is here. Her stomach flops, and she immediately casts her gaze downwards. While he adjusts the weights, she sneaks a glance his way, and her heart attempts to beat its way out of her chest. Ugh, I like him. That much is obvious. She sighs. Well, what am I going to do about that? He turns his head in her direction. What does Nicky do?

A) She stoops to pick the weights back up and strains through another set of bicep curls.

B) She turns and meets his gaze.

The other day a meandering thought, a desire to do something, kind of sort of totally changed my life. I can’t remember what it was - not important. My point being that I had written it off because worst case scenarios, all the ways in which a situation can go wrong, seems to be the default state my brain switches to when faced with any decision. My mind runs through all the possible ways a situation could go wrong, like conflict, rejection, or waste of time.

I caught myself. A realization. A life-changing mental tectonic shift. An epiphany. I’d given this fledgling idea a negative outcome before I’d even taken any action. The reality is that I don’t truly know how something is going to turn out, therefore why get negative about it before I even start? An idea or desire within myself doesn’t become real until I take it out from within me and take action.

There’s an infinite number of ways reality can unfold based on the decisions I make. There is a certain amount of unpredictability in our lives, and nothing is really set in stone until we make it so.

I can look at similar experiences from the past and wager a most-likely outcome, and this is beneficial if I’m looking to avoid a pattern. For example, if dating the same type of person tends to lead to the same undesired outcome.

When I look to my past for reference, my brain first collates the negative outcomes. The mind errs on the side of caution. This is fear-based programming, and its purpose is to keep us safe. Anything the brain doesn’t have reference for, or is able to associate with a previous negative experience, can trigger a flight or fight response. The brain then offers, on a shiny silver patter, other frequently used options pulled from the comfort zone. My default state of thinking up reasons to not do something keeps the cortisol, the stress hormone, levels optimal.

Rejection is a part of life. Fear of rejection is a lack of self-love. I can either safeguard myself from it, or dust myself off when it happens and remain open to life’s potential for positive outcomes. I saw self-preservation as a form of self-love, but at what point does self-preservation become a disservice to the self?

My past has closed me off to the world, and I’ve ended up in an uneventful life. Years of stagnancy later, and I’m ready to relinquish control. It might be a little uncomfortable, and it might be more fun.

It’s not as though my life is all negative experiences. On the contrary, after weeding through the negatives, my choices have also created positive experiences, sometimes far exceeding my own expectations.

I am now talking myself into doing things rather than out of. There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ outcomes. They are just situations, and they elicit either positive or negative emotions.

When I talk myself out of something I am really just giving into fear. Thinking up worst case scenarios is letting fear kibosh an alternate reality and keep me in the one I am currently experiencing. Thinking up worst case scenarios kills motivation. It closes me off to an alternate reality. I used to watch tarot readings on Youtube thinking I was getting a fortune-telling, but I was actually window-shopping. My understanding now is the readings were showing me alternate realities.

My present reality is a result of the decisions I made. If I want to experience something different then I need to make the decisions that will get me there. I am already the person I desire to be. I just have to make the appropriate choices.

My pearl of wisdom is this: we don’t really know how something will work out, and when that something is just an idea waiting to be born into the world, give it a chance and let the red and green flags guide you.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

Ming is parked behind a non-emergency medical transfers vehicle, and it is, unexpectedly, sparking a desire within her to start volunteering somewhere. That evening, while perusing several websites, she selects the organizations she’d like to work with and reads over their criteria. The cursor hovers over a link to a volunteer application form. What does Ming do?

A) Ming pauses and lifts her hand off the mouse. She decides to come back to it later and closes her laptop.

B) Ming fills out the application form to the best of her ability and presses send.