Is It Just Me Or... Does The Fear Of Getting Life Wrong Stop Us From Living?

When I was in my deepest darkest depression hole this summer, the people around me kept saying things that didn’t make sense in my brain.

One by one, my closest friends and family all started encouraging me to do more of whatever I wanted to do. Sometimes it was on a small scale – I would call my dad in a panic and he would encourage me to just spend the day doing whatever felt okay, whether it was watching Disney films or going for a walk. Other times they would try to get me to engage positively with the future by asking where I wanted to travel in the world? What shows did I still want to see? What activities did I want to try?

I tried to explain to them the best way I could, that nothing felt okay. I could barely see past the next hour, let alone into the future. And I had no fucking clue what I wanted. At one point choosing which pair of socks to take from my drawer and wear felt like an impossibly difficult call.

The decision of how to spend each moment felt loaded with so much fear –

What if I choose to spend the afternoon watching films and then my entire career crumbles and I never do anything meaningful ever again?

What if I decide that I want to visit Greece but then being there means I miss out on something else that was always supposed to happen to me in Spain?

What if I say what I think I want and then it turns out down the line that I was wrong?

What if I get it all wrong?

I’m starting to realise that I’ve spent most of my life living in fear of getting life wrong. Of not doing things perfectly, of not being what others expect me to be, of not making the right choice every time. And at points that fear becomes so all-consuming, that it separates me completely from even being able to tell what I want.

By default, what I want just becomes what feels the least scary –

I want to do things that will bring the least judgement from others and make everyone else happy.

I want to go wherever you want to go, or maybe just not go anywhere because it feels safer here.

I don’t know what I want. Maybe I don’t want anything.

If you live like that for long enough, your life stops feeling like it’s even yours.

Over the last five months I’ve been trying to get back in touch with the part of myself that does know what she wants. The part that lives somewhere inside my body and has a reaction when it’s time to decide things. The part I’m so used to pushing down, rationalising myself out of, ignoring until I can’t feel her anymore.

It started small –

What do you actually feel like eating, if you really listened to your body?

Do you actually feel like going to that event you agreed to go to?

How do you really want to spend your weekend? What would actually make you feel joy, if you weren’t considering the outcome or factoring in anyone else’s opinion?

Each time there was a decision to make, I tried to listen, and I made it. Even if it did fill me with panic every time.

Slowly – with every decision I made and noticed that the world didn’t crash down afterwards – the panic started to get smaller. Answers came easier. Tapping into what I actually wanted felt possible again. And I started to feel more and more like the Megan I remembered being years ago. I even started to look forward to things again (that one took a while!),

And most importantly, I reminded myself every day (and still do), that it doesn’t always have to be the perfectly right decision. People make imperfect decisions all the time and they survive. Sometimes, it probably leads somewhere way more interesting than a perfectly right decision would have. Even if I choose something and then change my mind, everything will not suddenly collapse into nothingness.

Maybe there’s no such thing as a “wrong” decision at all. Maybe we just decide, and then adapt.

I don’t have to live in fear of getting it all wrong because I’m capable of withstanding change and listening to myself for the next right move.

I don’t have to live in fear of getting it all wrong.

A few days ago, I got my first tattoo.

I never thought I would get a tattoo – couldn’t stand the thought of looking down one day and feeling like I’d chosen it wrong.

But when the opportunity to get one came up, something in my body said “go”. The artist I’d fallen in love with couldn’t do the design I’d been considering for a while, so I had 3 days to decide on an alternative. I tuned into that place in my body where wants live, and decided. Then I drove across the country by myself, and got a tattoo.

And that feeling? The feeling of having listened to myself, of saying what I want out loud, and of knowing that it didn’t have to be the perfectly right decision? It feels better than any perfectly right decision I’ve ever made.

It feels better than keeping other people happy. It feels better than going nowhere because it’s safer. It feels better than staying in places that don’t feel right anymore.

Scarier. But so much better.