My Green Light

My best friend is vacuous. When I met her, I saw that particular trait as a destructive flaw. Her willingness to take steps into the gaping unknown, with little to no consideration for potentially brutal consequences struck me as dumb. But now, after enduring a solid chunk of years in a perpetual doubting game with myself, after unwillingly questioning, and usually coming to regret, nearly every decision, all I want is to be more mindless. What a blessing it would be to stop the over-thinking. What liberation it would be to achieve nirvana. What a green light it would be to find a green light that I could be sure in.

If you asked me what the last decision I made with utmost certainty was, I would answer you firmly. I would say "I chose to go to the bathroom about an hour ago." Confusion would trail you as backed away slowly from the obviously incoherent person you had just spoken to. Sadly, that person is me. I am not someone who has ever had great ambitions, nor am I someone who has ever truly experienced goal-setting. I have come to take things as they come to me for the simple fact that I cannot effectively choose them myself. Needless to say, I have expended countless Kilojoules of energy on trying to make a decision myself; a decision which I would not regret within a matter of hours. I have futilely attempted to emancipate myself from the motions, and I have been largely unsuccessful. Notably, I once set a goal to save up a certain amount of money in my bank - what a miserable failure that turned out to be. After saving for a few months, I questioned my motive behind saving. Was it to please my parents? Was it to seem better than I was to myself? After plentiful time devoted to thought, I, solely, recognized that either option would be atrocious. So, I withdrew my money and went on a rampage of purchases.

Within a few hours of draining my funds, an overwhelming sadness and regret befell me. I started questioning my motives yet again; I started ruing my decision. Moreover, I could not come to terms with the fact that I had done something so misguided. I was so stupid. In a fit of melancholia, I called my mother in and explained the situation. She counselled me, telling me that there was no going back now, so there was no point in tears or sadness. Logically, she was perfectly right, but I was hysterical and completely ashamed at my irrational behavior, so I ignored her words.

I came to realize that she was right, and endeavored to make use of her advice. This, however, led to a totally different set of issues. Now, I would cease to regret decisions by not making them at all. I began living as a beach ball on the ocean - slowly drifting atop waves with sheer disregard for what they bring. Decisions, like waves, began to come to me. My parents would tell me, for example, that I should study for my SAT exam. I would not request a reason, nor would I question why doing the SAT was beneficial - I would just do it. Everything appeared perfect. There was no burden upon me to choose, and any regrets would fall unto my old folks.

Quickly, my parents recognized the possible consequences of such an action, and lovingly pushed me into my greatest fear - the gaping unknown.

The time for university had come, and it carried a significance with it: the need to choose a path. They asked me what I wanted to do, and I questioned it myself. It had, after all, been quite a while since I had made a decision of such gravity myself. I was certain in one thing - no sciences. High school science courses had traumatized me too much to continue them into the future. So, art it was. I had made a conscious choice in grade 8 to join debate, and I had grown to be very good at it (which I've always felt has contributed to this great ordeal of mine, but more on that later), so a natural transition would be political sciences. And that is what I signed up for.

Soon thereafter, a series of doubts began plaguing me. I was no longer even sure that university was the right path. Everyone's elusive final goal is happiness, and perhaps, for me, that happiness came in the form of opening a coffee shop, with a ceramics studio in the back, in Olympia, Washington. That sounded wonderful, but would it really be a good idea? It would mean missing out on the university experience and on the education. I do not want to be stupid. I battled this doubt.

After that, I heard someone declare Arts diplomas worthless, and then a whole new series of struggles began to riddle me. Should I have signed up for the sciences? Sure, they are scarring to my whimsical mind, but they are far more secure and lucrative.

And so the cycle continued. Thought after thought, doubt after doubt. Worst of all, these doubts were not limited to the academic realm of my existence. They affected me in every fiber of my being. In vibrant, young relationships and infatuations I was the same. One month, I would be married to the idea that stoners were my type because they never criticized, or offered opposition. But then I would ponder the normality of wanting a near vegetative person for a romantic partner. I would proceed to change my type to someone with more ambition and drive, and then I consider the dark side of ambition - the unquenchable thirst for reaching farther, moving faster. I would not like that either. There was just a problem with everything.

After the fact, I commenced fainting and sleepwalking. Countless visits to the hospital proved fruitless. I was given a plethora of diagnoses, a different one from each doctor. One suggested something unexpected, though - stress. He inquired as to how this busy year of grade 12 had unraveled. and I told him of my feelings and stresses. He brought up a very interesting political-debate-parallel to my life tumults: In communism, life is easy. When you walk into the grocery store to buy a bag of chips, you have three options, maximum. When you walk into a grocery store in a capitalist country, however, you have, at least, thirty different choices for a bag of chips. Of course one was to be more chronically dissatisfied in a land with such an abundance of options, than in one without. Regardless, his diagnosis was wrong because further tests proved a heart condition was to blame for the intermittent black outs, but perhaps he was right on a different level.

All these available options had likely made me dazed and confused. It would be far easier to choose from a streamlined list of things, than a jumbled pile of them. It would perhaps even alleviate the dreaded doubts. Unfortunately, life does not come as a neatly organized as an excel spreadsheet. It requires you to weave through it's threads to find some meaning, some purpose, some green light. Life carries with it a tremendous amount decision-making, but I should cope with that and deny it the pleasure of causing me grief. I should stand tall and firm with my choices. When I make a decision, I need not fret. I need to stand with confidence and accept the potential imperfections as my vacuous friend recommended.

There is a limit to debate. In fact, its whole purpose is to arrive at a solid conclusion. Yet, here I am, skewing its whole purpose, and debating into oblivion with my only true opponent - myself. Why I so immensely lack a sense of purpose and certainty, I do not know. Why I blossom to be unhappy and regretful with each choice, I also do not know. Even the most seemingly simple and obvious decisions pose as enormous obstacles to me. Consider this hypothetical scenario: I have been given a free trip around the world. Who in the right mind would forfeit it? Perhaps I would because I would question whether missing university, and escaping the nestling of my home, constituted as reason enough to see the vastness of the world. How very strange I am.

Maybe I just have the whole concept wrong. What if the only reason that I am unable to find my green light is because I am so desperate to find it? I feel as though time is running out. As soon as I graduate, I will have infinite time, which I should invest towards seeing my green light come to fruition. But I have no stable green light, so what am I to do with all that time? What if, on a whim, I choose to not go to university, and open my coffee shop instead? Will I be happy? Will I have a steady green light? Frankly, it is all I want. I am so enamored by the idea of being happy and at peace with a self-imposed choice.

I have faith that I will.

One day, you may find me sitting on the beach, sipping a cute umbrella drink after a vacuous day of making London Fogs served in handmade ceramic cups. You may ask me what the last decision I made with utmost certainty was, and I may answer you firmly. I may say something like "I decided to have a fourth child and simultaneously expand my coffee shop in Olympia". You may remember me as that very frazzled adolescent you met some years ago in Vancouver and you might ask yourself what in the world had happened in between these years. In fact, you may even be so bold as to vocalize that question to me, and I may or may not answer you with the words of Dr. Igor, a character from Paulo Coelho's novel Veronika Decides to Die, and say "People only allow themselves the luxury of being insane when they are in a position to do so". You will consider my words, and know that I am simply too enthralled with daily life to worry myself with banalities. And finally, you will likely ask yourself what then exactly permitted me to be insane all those years ago. Was it my cradled upbringing? Was it that I was spoiled? Was it my environment? Was it a lack of maturity? Was it the fact that I had too little to do, especially considering the fact that I skipped out on plenty of homework? Or was it, perhaps, a culmination of all of the above?