Yin and Yang is a Chinese symbol which shows that in every bad thing there is some good and in every good thing there is some bad.

Whichever option we take, there are always pros and cons. But once we choose to leave something behind, we shouldn’t go back.

There are pros and cons to everything

It has your mind going around in circles sometimes, when you weigh up the pros and cons of everything and you still can’t come out with a clear decision of which route you should take.

An example of this is being in a relationship—there are pros and cons. When you’re in a relationship you have to compromise, you have to be considerate, you have to share your time or spend less time on your hobbies and watch films you otherwise wouldn’t.

On the other hand, you have a life companion to share your joys and sorrows with, you can have sex as often as you want, you have support, you might have help in doing the housework (although there’s more housework to be done because they are messier than you), you have to have sex sometimes when you don’t really feel like it, you have to have sex with the same person all the time and can’t flirt with anyone else.

It’s the same when you look at jobs—is freelance or working for someone better? What sport is the most fun and healthy? Should I work harder or relax more?

I find that sometimes after I’ve made a decision, I suddenly see the cons of what I’ve decided, as opposed to all the pros which made me make that decision in the first place. Then I start thinking that perhaps what I had before was better then what I have now and start doubting myself.

How to be decisive

Trust your heart and intuition: When making a decision, listen to what feels right for you, rather than what your rational brain tells you. Mostly, your subconscious has the answers, which your overworked brain can’t figure out. Your gut feeling is right.

There will come a time, whilst you are doing whatever you chose to do, whether it’s quitting your job, or leaving a relationship or moving to another city, when you will miss what you left behind.

You will remember the good things.

When this happens, don’t wallow in these emotions and start thinking, Should I have stayed where I was? Take yourself back to the present and enjoy whatever you are experiencing now. Fighting and resisting what you have to do now poisons you, because you are effectively fighting against the whole universe, which is set up to be in this moment, exactly as it should be.

There is no point thinking of all the things that I ‘could have’ done, or perhaps ‘should have’ done. They happened. The only reason I should think about them is to learn from them; I can work towards creating a different future for myself but I have to accept this moment as it is now.

So, today when I was having one of those what if moments, What if I had done this, would things have been better, did I make a mistake? I stopped and told myself there was no point thinking about this. It happened for reason and the decision felt right at the time, so it was meant to be that way.

This is the same when worrying about or resenting things you can’t change.

An example: it’s a Sunday evening and the thought of going to work the next day made me say “Oh, no it’s Monday again tomorrow, which means going to work, urgh.”

I paused for a moment to see how I felt and realised that this thought was making me feel down. That I wasn’t focusing on the moment and instead I was resenting what was coming in the future, causing myself to feel negative about everything—when actually right now, I didn’t have a problem…but I was creating one unnecessarily.

Don’t go back on your decisions

I used to always go back and forth on my decisions because I was so insecure about them and thought that by doing this I always had a back door open, ready to escape.

But then someone told me that they don’t believe in going back to things, once they leave them behind, because it feels like going back in time instead of forward. I thought about it and realised that’s the way I feel. Whenever I go back to something, it feels good and nicely familiar for a while, but eventually that feeling comes creeping up that you’ve gone back in time, because you are too weak to move forward.

If you keep going back to thinks you’ve decided to leave, be it a job, relationship, or anything else, you are usually taking a step back. Often, you do it to fill a void in your life, but if you keep doing this, it’s less likely you’ll have time to move forward, because you’ll be too busy doing the things you had already decided to leave behind.

It feels uncomfortable, but unless you really close the opportunity of going back, you might not have a clear enough mind to see the possibilities that are out there.

We seek security and fear uncertainty, but letting uncertainty into our life is the best we can do. Uncertainty creates new opportunities, whereas security is only imaginary anyway and stops us from progressing forward.

Instead of looking back, embrace uncertainty and if you don’t like your current situation, stop and think of what choices can you make now to create a different future.

It might mean abandoning some of the things in your life, without having a replacement for them, but you need to do that so you can let the new things in.

 

Maia lives in London, England and is originally from the Czech Republic. She blogs about personal development and about ideas, discoveries and beliefs on how to live a fuller life. Read more of her posts on her website. 

 

 

 

 

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Ed: Bryonie Wise

(Source: 25.media.tumblr.com via Erin on Pinterest)