It’s Perfectly Normal to Doubt Your Path
Venturing into the unknown always comes with challenges.
When I had the opportunity to write full time, I took it. In the 5 years that I’ve been walking that path I’ve managed to finish and publish 18 books. I have 1 finished now that I’m editing and am working on another. Additionally, I’ve put out over 780 blog posts. I don’t think anyone can argue that this is a lot of writing.
I knew I wanted to be a writer at a young age. Yet, in college, I pursued different arts and got a degree in theatre (focused on directing) with a minor in audio production (I did lots of radio). Writing, however, was still an ongoing process for me, and I managed to get a bunch of books and blogs completed over the years.
Why didn’t I pursue this path sooner? Several reasons. I believed in the mythos of the starving artist, and that success as a writer was very, very hard to come by. Additionally, I thought that I needed to work a more mundane, 9-5 kind of job, despite all the proof that this was not a good fit for me. Outside influences and my own beliefs and values told me that it was better to fit my square peg self into society’s round holes.
I know that I have a degree of privilege that allows me to write full time now. Even following my chosen path, I still harbor doubt. Some is tangible, most is intangible.
Is this normal?
Even the people I know who work high-paying, 9-5 jobs have doubts. Doubt is normal because it’s built into the human psyche to make you mindful and ask questions.
It all falls apart when you don’t bother to be mindful or apply active conscious awareness. When you don’t question things here and now, you allow yourself to be disempowered. That, of course, amplifies doubt.
Society loves us to doubt. Some of that is part of consumerism. Doubt your place in the world? Buy this and show how you belong. Do you doubt you’re contributing to society as you should be? Use this service and spend your money to prove yourself worthy.
The trouble with doubt is when it sits too long, unquestioned, it evolves (devolves?) into fear. Fear keeps you in places and situations and uncomfortable but seemingly stable comfort zones you would rather not be in. Doubt is the surface and fear is the depths. Hence, addressing doubt helps keep fear at bay.
Is this normal? Yes. When you make choices and decisions, you are opening and closing doors. Sometimes, a door you close is one you probably should have left open. Fortunately, little to nothing in life is set in stone.
No matter what any holistic practice, self-help guru, wise person, or therapist of any stripe might tell you, choosing and walking a path and living life on your terms doesn’t alleviate doubt. So why not just give in and let the outside influencers drive you?
Doubt shows you have choices and decisions
The rest of the animal kingdom largely exists with relatively basic needs. Find food, find shelter, propagate the species, and live now. Humans are not that simple and haven’t been for millennia.
Humans is capable of a level of creativity and imagination that allows for incredible constructs and terrific destruction. Place an explosive device in the right spot with good intent, and you can open the face of a cliff to what gems and minerals lie beneath it. Place an explosive device in the wrong spot with bad intent, and you kill people and destroy places and things. One device, two very different and opposite uses.
The point is that the number of choices and decisions modern humans have are exponentially more than the rest of the animal kingdom. For some, that’s overwhelming. Why? Because self-sovereignty and self-awareness are bulldozed by consumerism, compliance, and artificial hierarchy.
No, I’m not suggesting anarchy or lawlessness or anything of that nature. Formal schooling might have been a long time ago for me, but I recall nobody teaching me how to look within and know myself, save maybe a well-meaning college course that did so abstractly and indirectly. Modern education is focused on performance and test scores and is not inclined to teach self-awareness of any kind. That sets up institutional disempowerment.
Doubt is born from choices and decisions laid out before you. Some are easy and readily automated, like brushing your teeth, the way you clean yourself in the shower, and such. Other choices and decisions carry more weight and consequence. Brave the traffic and go to work or stay home? Lie on your taxes or pay what you owe?
Then there are the biggest choices and decisions. Get married? Have kids? Try skydiving?
Doubt is a common matter.
You choose to let doubt become fear
Distractions are everywhere you turn. Social media? Big distraction. Smartphones? Distracting. Advertising everywhere? Your attention is soon divided and pulled in many directions.
There is a false narrative in modern society that makes doubt out to be wrong. Certainty, even in the face of facts counter to belief, has been emphasized in place of doubt. The problem is, when you go with this, you’re not addressing doubt but pretending it’s not there. Certainty and blind faith unquestioned can and will turn doubt to fear.
Many forces in the world today prefer you and I afraid. Why? Because then they have us disempowered and easier to influence.
Right here and now, in the present, you’re empowered to make conscious choices and decisions. Since you alone are in your head, heart, and soul, only you can choose and decide who, what, where, how, and why you are. When faced with doubt, it’s up to you to choose to address it and remove it or go through it. OR, to ignore it and risk it turning into fear.
The only person who can control your conscious mind and practice mindfulness is you. That means you choose and decide what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, the positivity or negativity of your approach, and your actions. Thus, you choose to address doubt when you experience it. Or not.
Yes, sometimes the choice is between the lesser of two evils. Other times, the choice is between bad and worse. Making the choice and deciding is what matters. Why? Because like any other muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets. The more choices and decisions you mindfully make the more empowered you become.
Knowing that it’s perfectly normal to doubt your path, can you see how making mindful choices and decisions matters and empowers you?
This is the seventh-hundred-fortieth (740) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this philosophy because I desire to make a difference in the world and help as many people as I can to find their empowerment with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to repost and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.
Also, please check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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