Imagine the scene, I am in a Thai restaurant, in New Zealand, with my boyfriend of the time. It's the first time we've been here but like every single time I'm in this kind of restaurant, my heart goes out to a curry. He tries to convince me to be a little more adventurous and try something new for once. I hesitate, the stress rises in me, I love all the dishes in sauce that are on the menu but I have such a big fear of being disappointed that I dare not choose. Panic-stricken and influenced by her speech, when the waitress arrives, I make up my mind in an emergency and turn to a new dish, one that I had never tried. When my plate arrives, I taste it, I'm disappointed, I say to myself that I should have taken the curry and I feel sad for the rest of the evening. He laughs and laughs at me, telling me that there is no reason to make a big deal of it, but for me, the disappointment and frustration are real that night...
It may seem completely futile or even stupid to some, but when you feel the world x 10 000, making a choice can really be a struggle... But then, what makes choice so difficult? Why are we afraid to choose? And why are we often tempted not to choose?
WANTING TO STAY IN CONTROL
What if I told you that one of my greatest fears as an HSP is to lose control? And that making a choice means taking the risk of not being in control?
If I believe my readings, not deciding anything often means not realizing anything... It's a way to keep one's super-power of mastering the world. For perfectionists like us HSP, not taking action allows us to fantasize and maintain the idea of being able to achieve everything. And it is this need to be in permanent control that triggers this fear of losing control and therefore this fear of making choices...
To better understand all this, I had to go back to my childhood... I can't count the number of times I heard myself as a child being told that I was a really good actress. Unconsciously, adults did not believe in the intensity of my emotions and reduced them to acts of comedy and/or manipulation... So for a long time, I believed that my emotions were not normal, that they were shameful and that I had to learn to manage them, or even hide them. Every time I let myself be overwhelmed, I was told that I was too sensitive, too touchy or that I didn't have a sense of humor... At school, when I was disappointed with my grades (although they were excellent), I was told that it was not normal to feel frustrated or disappointed with an 18 out of 20... All in all, with time, I told myself that this thing that was bubbling up inside me and making me explode with rage sometimes, was to be silenced. And so I became obsessed with the idea of keeping control.
If I was in control of these negative emotions that others do not like in me and that, better, I could do everything to prevent them from arising, I would become in the eyes of others, a better person... And these are the same patterns that I have gradually reproduced over the years when faced with any unpleasant situation. Making a choice can lead to a lot of emotions, not always pleasant, so not choosing is avoiding the negative emotion and thus the judgment of others.
AVOID FACING THE CONSEQUENCES
Also, not knowing how to choose is to avoid facing the consequences. Because the only person I can blame for making a bad choice is myself and that makes the choice more difficult and painful...
That is what Barry Schwartz explains in his Ted X Video. When he finds himself choosing a pair of jeans from 50 different versions, the only person he blames for his disappointment is himself. There is no excuse for failure... But if, on the contrary, he had found himself with the only model of jeans available and existing on the planet, the choice would have been made without any decision on his part, there would have been no one to blame and better, there would have been nothing in his power that he could have done to change the situation in case of dissatisfaction.
It took me many years to realize how demanding I was of myself. All my recent reading on HPI and HSP and the countless personality tests I've taken over the past few years all lead me to the same result: it's this same quest for perfectionism that prevents me from assuming the consequences of my choices. It is because I am the first (and only) to be so hard on myself that I cannot accept that there is room for error. I am unable to accept failure simply because I know that my inner persecutor will be so hard on me that the emotions will only be more intense...
TOO MUCH CHOICE KILLS THE CHOICE (CHOICE PARADOX)
Finally, the problem with choosing is that we often have too many choices, and that means having to give up certain possibilities, including the notions of failure, loss or abandonment. This does not make us happier or freer but more dissatisfied.
In that same video of Barry Schwartz, he discusses what he calls the paradox of choice. He explains how having too many choices deprives us of our freedom. It ends up overwhelming us with emotions and reasoning, preventing us from making a decision. He gives the example of a financing that was offered to employees of a company. The more choices they had, the less they signed up for the program, thus missing out on attractive opportunities. The reason? Having to choose from 50 different options takes time to analyze and compare, which often forces us to put off the task until later... And the problem with that, is that "later" often never comes...
He also adds that having too many choices makes us eternally dissatisfied. When he tells the story of his journey to buy a new pair of jeans and discovers that there are 50 versions, he panics. He spends an hour trying on the different sizes and cuts available to him and finally finds the one that fits him best. Once out of the store, his satisfaction drops. Why? Because the time spent comparing different versions has given him a good idea of what's out there and indirectly made him very demanding with the product, making the final appreciation more difficult to achieve. In short, having more choices makes us more demanding and makes our level of satisfaction less easily attainable.
CHOOSING NOT TO CHOOSE
Wanting to stay in control, avoiding facing the consequences, facing our growing dissatisfaction with a multitude of options, these would be the reasons for these growing fears and sometimes paralyzing decisions. And as for my curry in the Thai restaurant scene in the intro, this also explains why sometimes we are so tempted to let others choose for us, thus simplifying our task even though it doesn't make us happier.
If I personally have no problem facing my emotions on a daily basis, I must admit that when it comes to negative emotions, I am the first to run away. It's like the story of the empty shampoo bottle in the shower. NEVER, oh no never, will I run out of shampoo. I've probably had the replacement bottle in the cupboard for 10 days when the other one runs out... The reasoning may seem a bit far-fetched but why should I put myself through the frustration when I can simply avoid it?
And I think that's the root of my (and perhaps your) indecision. It is this pervasive and so unpleasant intensity of these emotions that I am trying to avoid at all costs through my indecision. Choosing is so stressful and sometimes so painful that I prefer to avoid the choice, if possible, and thus choose not to choose...
You're going to tell me "that's nice, but sometimes you don't have a choice, you have to choose." So how do we make the choice easier? Are there tools to help us choose? Stay tuned, because this will be the topic of the next blog post!
In the meantime, take care of yourself,
Love,
Co.
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