~ Retrieved from my old blog, written in March 2019
Today I had an exam, and I didn’t get to end it because I spent too much time going over my answers. And even after spending all that time reviewing them, I still made stupid mistakes. Lately, I’ve been noticing more and more how much my doubt and insecurity can cost me. How being anxious about a choice can make me too slow, and even when I finally make the choice, it will come out as a half-step, not decisive, not clear, not sure. I’ve always known this was a problem, but now I’m starting to think I might never get anywhere if I don’t solve it.
I like to think about Freddy Mercury. I’m listening to him right now, watching the last scene in the Bohemian Rhapsody movie released earlier this year. He had this style, so particular to him, so weird and different, but specially, so bold. He wanted to disrupt, and he didn’t mind if someone laughed at him or didn’t like what he did. How do you do that? How do you convince yourself? What’s the mindset you need to be on to just challenge everything so openly and not care whether it looks right or not?
I think the mindset is that of a force of nature. He’s not acting a part, he’s not even singing a song or dancing a dance. He is just being himself, and he doesn’t think twice about it. Everything he does in the stage, the way he moves his body, the games he plays with his voice, it’s all just as if he was only being an instrument played by some greater force. You can call it god, inspiration, fate, or something like that, he is just letting himself go in front of everyone, freely, without doubt or fear, and pulling it off.
Maybe my misconception is thinking that if I think something twice it will always yield a better result than if I think about it just once, or maybe not even think about it. Probably that’s slightly right. Maybe what I should do is just start a war on thinking twice certain things. Just reach a conclusion and leave it like that. If your mind comes back to it, distract yourself away from it, focus on something else.
Or even better, try to just be. It’s something I’ve discovered lately, with meditation. I know it’s what everyone says, but maybe that means that it’s a real side-effect. Simply put, try to silence every voice inside, or just let them run without really following what they’re saying, as if they were just some background noise to the real thing: being. Experiencing everything you’re doing, almost even in slow motion. Drown yourself in the moment and see where it takes you.
I think I can see what being a force of nature is from my time skiing. It’s not always the case but, sometimes, specially if I’m feeling angry or some other strong emotion, and if I’m also skiing, I feel like I can stop being myself. I become this part of the landscape, a part of the mountain. Like an avalanche falling down the mountain. I go faster than ever and yet I’d say I’m somewhat in control.
Some people might refer to it as “flow”, that state of forgetting yourself. It’s interesting how you can reach it both by focusing on your strong emotions and by stopping listening to yourself. There’s more to say about reaching this state, but I don’t think I’ve experienced it enough to know how to put it into words.
Imagine walking inside a straight line painted in the pavement. It’s easy, you can do it without stepping even once out of the line. Not much thinking required. Now imagine walking over the ledge of a rooftop. It’s basically the same: a straight line a bit thicker than one of your shoes. And yet, now it seems so much harder. The increased risk is now making you think twice, or even more, about each step. There’s so much more to lose that you might enter panic mode and not know how to advance. But it’s still just walking down a straight line, one step after the other.
I don’t know if the “force of nature” mindset would work here, maybe yes. I think that in this situation the solution is to close your eyes and try to imagine yourself back in the pavement, with a line drawn over it. Try to forget about the new added risk and just do the same thing you’ve done so many times before.
So yeah, insecurity, doubt, and anxiety are the enemy. I think I need to declare war on them. We’ve seen two skills that can be learned to fight them: “thinking as a force of nature” and trying to forget about the extra risk. I think that a mix of both can work well in most situations. But, simply put, the answer is to avoid thinking twice about something when you feel yourself doubting. I know that sounds like I’m just re-stating the obvious, but I think that I can distinguish between thinking something through and pure anxiety. Probably it’s not that clear cut most times, maybe meditation can help with that, but I think all of this is a good place to begin. I still think this is probably my most urgent issue to fix, and I need to learn to work on it, little by little, ASAP. So let’s try this, and picture myself being more like Freddy Mercury.
(I think dying my hair was a step in the right direction)
(Meditating more probably would also help)