Opposites Musing #2…Or, Tricky Truth About Dreams Coming True

This is delicious-bite #2 on holding opposites. 

Last post we talked about what it means to hold an opposite.

Let’s now ponder why. Why should we bother holding opposites? 

GREAT question :) Here’s one “why.”

Just today, I had a beloved student who got two amazing offers post-college. One to go to med school (with a generous financial package, I might add), and another to work at a well-ranked hospital with a patient population of her dreams. 

So here’s the tricky truth: Last fall when she was submitting applications, let’s just say she would have been salivating to get any offer at all. 

But now that she has two desirable offers in hand...her prevailing reaction isn’t celebration or even relief, it’s...quiet agony.

Can you relate?

At first glance, it would be easy for some to write her off as spoiled or ungrateful. But I absolutely know that’s not the case. She’s actually pretty typically human in her experience.

Psychology researcher Dan Gilbert talks about “affective forecasting.” This is our ability to predict not if it’s going to rain, but how we are going to feel by thinking, doing, or being something. 

Turns out, humans might be able to predict weather with a lot of certainty. Indeed, yesterday my phone told me that with *100%* certainty it was going to snow (which I found to be a little arrogant, but I digress). 

But we kind of suck when it comes to predicting how we are going to feel, don’t we? Why get up for a walk when my chair is so comfy?

Well, all kinds of research shows that people feel better when they stroll for 10 minutes, but we just can’t predict that well enough to muster the activation energy to get up. BTW, I’m just as guilty of this as the next person!

So I bet you’re asking: “Ok, Benita - what does any of this have to do with why we hold opposites?”

Remember my dear student? She wasn’t dancing in the streets, or even all that happy. She was kinda miserable. Why? Because she was riddled with confusion between her perfectly great choices. She might have been better off with only one choice - how weird is that?!

In my experience, confusion between picking the “right” way can be a mask for fear. 

And to resolve that tension coming from fear, we have to grow our capacity to be willing and able to attend to these multiple truths, to sit with the discomfort that comes with so badly wanting a right answer, yesterday. 

The real truth? There often isn’t a right way with a capital R.

In my student’s case, either choice could lead her to a similar place in 10 years. 

Being able to tolerate - and then eventually, with practice and support, even find pleasure in sitting with this state of not knowing - allows for a new way to emerge. 

With less effort and more grace. A way that is borne from witnessing countervailing weights orbiting around each other, informing each other, and creating a fresh energy...literally, magnetism! 

And it doesn’t come from overthinking. Writing out pro/con lists can be a starting point, but sometimes they only compound the confusion. A-ha! Twenty seven reasons...on each side! Now what?!

Are there ways that invite less agonizing?

Stay tuned for THAT answer....

For now, drop a me heart emoji if you can relate to my student’s struggle. And let me know: what resonated for you?