Sometimes, there is no decision

I think everyone makes the realization at some point that they aren’t the main character. That often what we want isn’t what is possible because it requires others to believe the same thing. We’re often waiting for others, and that’s hard.

On waiting

There’s been a lot happening in my life recently. I’ve applied to grad school, and interview requests won’t start rolling in until the start of next year. I applied to 8 graduate programs in computational biology, and I’m quite excited to get into any of them.

I’m not, however, excited to wait.

I think I’ve realized I hate waiting. Often, I want to do something.
Maybe, I’m impatient, or maybe I just feel like having control, but the anxiety of waiting for someone else to say or do something that will impact me is nerve-wracking. It’s a similar feeling I’ve had in relationships in the past. I’ve felt like I’ve wanted to be somewhere with that person, say, closer emotionally, or maybe I’ve wanted more frequent communication.
Often, though, it feels like what I say won’t change the outcome.
Often times, it’s not about me rather it’s about them.

And that’s okay.

It’s taken me a long time to even start to think that that’s okay. Waiting always felt like a punishment for not having done something well or for having upset someone. However, over time I’ve realized that sometimes, there just isn’t a decision for me to take. The best thing I can do is wait.

It’s not that I shouldn’t do anything at all. It’s that doing anything more for a situation out of my control only serves to make me feel better but not to actually make the situation any better. Sometimes, it’s up to them to figure it out.

Waiting for life to happen

This is probably something every 20-something goes through, but it’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day: life ends up feeling repetitive. Recently, I’ve found it pretty easy to just go to work, get home, eat something, play video games, and then go to bed. As a result, it feels hard to find purpose.

I’ve started to battle this by doing new things. What is something new I can play on violin? What are some new games that came out? What’s a new restaurant I can go and try?
The novelty of things brings back that childlike wonder that years of repetition buried.

In this case, it feels wrong to wait. I’d really just be waiting for something to happen instead of making it happen myself. In relationships, waiting for the other person to do something is counterproductive because you can’t predict what they’ll do or when they’ll do it. You can, however, control your own actions and how you respond to things.

There is no decision.

In waiting for people or for things to happen, I’ve realized it’s really just the sense of agency that I’m missing. In a lot of situations though, there is no decision to be made.

It’s not my decision whether someone likes me.
It’s not my decision whether I get into graduate school.
It’s not my decision what people think of me.

All hope is not lost, though. I think decoupling my value from my ability to do is something I’m actively trying to understand.
It’s okay if someone doesn’t like me– they aren’t ready.
It’s okay if I don’t get into grad school– my application wasn’t as competitive.

What I can control is what I do. In many ways, this line of thinking is starting to improve how I approach anything– with a sense of wanting to be my very best because that’s all I can really control. It’s definitely difficult, and I find myself often slipping back into old ways of apathy and anxiety, but it’s something I hope to begin changing in the coming months and years.

That’s one decision that does exist.