By: Gabriela Yareliz
If you are a nineties girl, you remember singing the Spice Girl’s “Wannabe.” We would belt it out on the playground. (Not kidding).
/I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want
So tell me what you want, what you really, really want/
I think there is an epidemic in adults who don’t know what they want. We deflect. We look down at our feet, and we shrug. We defer to others. We keep saying we don’t know. And perhaps we don’t. But weirdly, we are ok with that. Perhaps we are paralyzed in fear and trying to distract ourselves.
What does it take to know? It means taking the time to process emotions and sit with it. Science says many of the emotions we avoid can often be processed in about 90 seconds (if we don’t shut it down or distract from it). Things people avoid for a lifetime could be processed in 90 seconds. Think about that.
If you truly don’t know what you want, you need to figure it out. Do it while you have time.
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson has some fascinating thoughts on this that, to me, are right on point. He refers to this not-knowing epidemic as the “fog.”
“Sometimes you are so afraid you don’t even allow yourself to even know what you want.”
“If you know what you want, then you know when you are failing. If you don’t know what you want— then you can keep that foggy.”
“If you don’t set out the conditions for your success, then you can avoid your responsibility because again, that’s not clear. The problem with wanting something is that in all probability you are going to have to work for it and make sacrifices, and it’s certainly possible you want to avoid that. You may be afraid to make it clear because other people can deny it to you, too.
Failing to make it clear protects you right now, but it’s really hard on you over the long term because if you don’t make it clear to yourself what you want or to other people, the probability that you are going to just stumble into it is pretty low. You can put that off indefinitely day after day but the problem with that is that you age while you are doing that and there is obviously a price to be paid for doing that.”
Have you let fear put you into paralysis? Are you avoiding responsibility by staying in neutral fog instead of moving forward? Are you waiting to “stumble” into what matters in life?
We have to ask ourselves these questions. Time is the most precious thing. It doesn’t return. We are up against the clock, so tell me what you want, what you really really want. Then go out, and make it happen.
“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver
GABRIELA YARELIZ 