Examine your motives.

 

You spend an inordinate amount of time wondering about what you should do. Every advice column gives examples of this, and exists because of your endless uncertainty.  You resemble small, dithering, blind mice in this. Should I marry this one, or that one? Should I leave this one? Should I invite this one to my wedding? Should I cut this one off?  Should I do this job? Should I retire?

 

 

On and on, round and round you go, a rat trapped in a cage of circular arguments. There are always plusses and minuses, pros and cons, so you spend your time weighing one against the other, looking for advice and opinions, always worried that you are going to miss out, you will lose, you will get it wrong.  That is what animates you when you are wondering what you should do in any context.

 

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Wondering what you should do is a form of fear.  It’s a powerless way of trying to control an outcome. You are asking: what particular set of circumstances is most advantageous to myself?

Wondering what you should do is a way to perpetuate a status quo.

It is a way to be afraid of what might happen.

It is a way not to make a decision.

It is a way of trying to control the outcome.

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So what are you saying?  We should just make decisions recklessly, without carefully examining everything first?

 

 

Just that you don’t need to do that. That you could instead take a step up to the next level of thinking. As long as you are thinking about making good decisions, experience will present itself to you as binary choices with possible fearsome consequences.  As long as you believe your decisions can be good or bad, so long will you be trying to protect yourself against bad ones.

 

Always begin within

 

You could also believe that it is not up to you to provide for yourself, that you are always provided for.  You could give thanks for each way you are provided for.  Whatever you pay attention to increases. It is law.

 

Instead of wondering, examine

 

The next time you find yourself wondering what you should do, instead of wasting time thinking of possible outcomes that favor yourself, examine your motives.  Should I take this job? You will have a list of pros and cons, whether you wrote them down or not. But it would be so much better and easier for you if you armed yourself with honesty. Why do I want this job? Why don’t I want this job? Be brutally, relentlessly honest.  I want this job for the money and the status. I don’t want this job because it depresses me to do it. Spend time with your motives; let them be known fully. Examine them fully. Release any fear.

 

 

Then, when you have examined your motives, own them:   I am staying with him because I need the money.  I am taking this job because I don’t think I can get a better one. I am afraid I won’t find anyone else. To own your motives is to be relentlessly honest. And if spending time with your motives doesn’t feel good, you can always lose them.  Tell them to go.

 

But how will I make any decisions, if I have no motives? I would have no criteria to go on, no way to judge anything.

 

 

You decide to stop procuring for yourself. You change your messages.  Instead of “What should I do?”, you could entertain:

I am always provided for

Thank you for all that I have

May all beings be as well-provided

Thank you for providing for me so well

 

Notice examples of good provenance, give thanks, enlarge, enjoy.

 

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them

Albert Einstein