Stuck

QUESTION:

Hey Sheasby

I’ve been faced with some hard decisions lately and have found myself feeling stuck in the limbo of indecision sometimes. It feels like I can't tell the difference between my fear and what's my gut instinct. Sometimes I feel like there isn't a wrong choice and I have to simply make one, but these prove to be even harder decisions. What sort of process can I rely on to decipher what my gut is saying?

Love, Martin Scorscissors

(name changed for privacy sake)

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ANSWER:

Thank you for sending this one through Mr Scorcissors

“stuck in the limbo of indecision”

Ironically

I have been sitting in a cafe

Completely stuck as to which question to answer this week

There are so many fantastic ones that have come through

So many bloody options

And I genuinely feel stuck in limbo

Which one do I choose?

Which one do I invest the next few hours of my life into

They all require a lot of energy

They all require a lot of thought, intention and effort

And precious, valuable time

But no matter which one I think about picking

There’s a sense of

“oh god, what if I invest the next several hours or days of my life and then realise three quarters of the way that I made a mistake”?

I feel tight in the chest

My shoulders feel glued to my ears

And I just want to kind flop over and go do nothing.

In a moment like this

I want to bring it back to what I know best

One of the few things I can be absolutely certain of

(of which there are very few)

Death

I will be dead soon

35 years have already gone by in a blink

And with each year being proportionately smaller in the context of a lifetime

It’s only going to go faster

How bloody beautiful!

Imagine if there was no death?

Imagine if there was no finite time to live one’s life?

The answer to doing anything and everything could be:

“I’ll do it in a couple hundred years from now”

I say this not to emphasise a sense of haste

But the exact opposite

As a brilliant director once said

“We have so little time, we must slow down”

In a hundred years from now

No one will even remember my name

So if all I did in this moment was close my laptop

Sip my coffee slowly for 20 minutes with no phone

The world will keep turning

And that big decision I feel like I HAVE to make…

When I zoom out

Is almost never as big as it feels.

I see it over and over again

(In fact, I still often catch myself slipping into it)

Thinking that a decision needs to happen now!

Often, it comes with a forceful or pushing kind of feeling in my body

And interestingly, a judgement

What do I mean by judgement?

That the feeling of confusion or being unclear is somehow a bad thing

It is not.

To feel confused or unclear about a decision

Is a perfectly normal thing

I was in a museum with Kenzie Baby the other day

We were looking at skulls of apes

All the varies species (including us) from the passed 4 million years

You know what each of those species have done?

Made choices

Which direction will food be?

Where is best for safety tonight?

Which valley do we cross next?

Which direction to head for water?

Which berry is safe and which one poisonous?

Who is safe to be around and who is not?

These…

These were important decisions which meant life or death.

I really cannot emphasise the following point enough…

The industry will try convince you that every decision is both important and urgent

It’s not

I promise you

It is not

There are so few decisions in this industry which are both truly important and require immediate attention

I genuinely am finding it difficult to think of an example right now

Getting that new agent right now… no

Giving a clear yes or no so the production can fly you across the world to prep for that new series which starts in 6 days time… nope.

(You can still just have a nap and take care of it in an hour or two)

OOO

Okay

I have one!

It’s not acting related

But here goes

Once upon a time

Two twelve year old boys were washed off the rocks into the ocean outside my house

There was a secret track down the cliffs which no-one knew about but me

So I clambered down there in a jiffy and it ended up being just me and them

I stood on those rocks

About 10 metres away from these two screaming young boys

Thinking I was about to watch them drown in front of me within minutes

And I had to make decision

A decision which, in my opinion, was an important and urgent one to make

Do I jump in and risk drowning myself?

If I do jump in, which one do I go for first?

Do I run and find a floatation device (and risk them going under whilst I’m gone)?

When I realised the situation I was in

And the decision I had to make

I froze

I became paralysed with not knowing what to do next

But something I learned from an incredible human many years ago came to mind

A fascinating thing occurs when humans are under pressure when caught in a rip in the ocean

They think they have two choices

Sink

Or swim

Can they swim as hard as they can to get themselves out of it?

Or do they go under?

Of course, it’s fighting the current which sadly causes most to end up drowning

But there is a third choice in this moment

One which goes against many people’s instincts

To float

Huh?

Yup

Do nothing

Simply lean back and breathe

To give up on fighting nature

And simply go with her

Means one can float for a while to the end of the rip where they can then calmly swim back to shore

Back to the kids

I realised in that moment

There was a third choice

So I took a breath

Sat down

And started chatting

I told them help was on its way

And that all we needed to do was just hang out for a couple minutes

Float around

We spoke about the weather (It really was a beautiful day)

How their swim was going (they laughed at my lame dad joke)

How school was going (they were about to start high school!)

And a few minutes later

A jet-ski came around the headland and plucked the two kids up to go have some ice cream back on the shoreline

Why do I say all this?

There is a third choice

It’s not always a black or white, two option kind of deal

Sometimes

Floating is the best option

But remember

Floating is a biproduct

What’s the process that helps you float?

Leaning back and breathing

This requires a sense of giving up

A sense of surrender

Faith (No, religion doesn’t own the concept of faith)

You’re allowed to lean back, breathe, and take your time with making choices.

I have never regretted taking my time with an email, text or difficult conversation

But I sure as hell have regretted rushing these things

I sure as hell have regretted doing these things while my body is still in a place of push, force or should

Now

Back to your question:

What sort of process can I rely on to decipher what my gut is saying?

There’s many things here

You can do plenty of decision making courses or exercises

You can use tonnes of frameworks or systems

(I’m sure google will provide you with hundreds)

For me

Over the past decade of trying my best to consciously make decisions in regards to performance

I have only found one that I find sustainably reliable

Nature

Go back to nature

I don’t care where you live in this world

If you’re reading this

You have access

Somewhere

To nature

A park

A beach

A night sky

A boat

A forest

A valley

A horizon

A sunrise

A sunset

Create space for nature

Go to her

There is not a man-made structure on this earth which Mother Nature can’t destroy in a matter of seconds if she wishes to do so

Better to be on her side than against her

Better to listen to her than ignore her

And if you want a more logical reason as to why nature?

Being in nature will shift your physiology

Which in tern will influence your emotional state

Which influences your thoughts

And thus, shifts your choices.

Now

I’m three quarters through my article

Almost done with the choice I made hours ago

Did I mess up?

Do I regret the choice that I made?

Do I regret this article?

Was it the best choice I could have made?

I have no idea

I will never know

But it doesn’t matter

Death is coming

I tried something

And just the fact that I tried it my way

Is enough

Hope this helps

X

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