Finding Our Fit In This World

Every one of us has the same, but unique, challenge—to find our fit in the world, or more correctly, in each aspect of our lives. It’s a never-ending task; to find balance, our purpose, and meaning to life that is personally significant. It’s one of the key reasons why we are happy or unhappy.

Happiness or unhappiness in one area of life has the profound ability to skittle into other areas. The flow of the compartments of our lives is more interdependent than we care to realise.

Indecisiveness is a key indicator that our sense of fit is askew.

Markers of Indecisiveness

If we are given to have periods that vary from contentment to discontentment—the state of vacillating between these two, even on the same day—we straddle indecisiveness.

The truth is, when we grapple with our fit in the world—for instance, in one important aspect of our lives, like our employment—where we struggle for meaning, confused for our role in it all—ripples pervade into other areas, even mostly our thoughts.

This is never a good place to be for long.

If life is seen as a flow, something we need to maintain regarding balance, and that balance is upset, we can begin to become less congruent within ourselves; less sure, maybe; certainly less decisive. Along with haste, indecisiveness is one of the two great pests halting contentment.

And, ironically, indecisiveness will make itself known in the unlikeliest of seasons. It may commend itself to a season already challenged for other disconnected reasons.

Shifting the Imbalance

Life in the indecisive lane could be likened to a poorly ballasted ship; we imagine a ship that looks as if it may capsize. Righting a listing ship is perhaps awkward, but not as difficult as it seems.

Shifting the imbalance may take a focus partly in patience, to ride out the rough seas contributing to the list, and it may take a focus partly in discernment—the ability of awareness, and no less, the capacity of self enquiry—as well as the wherewithal, to install the changes required. Courage is the final component—sometimes we know what we need to do and all that is lacking is the will to do it. Courage is comparatively easy if we consider that both patience and discernment are rooted in the character of perseverance, firstly, and secondly of gifting—not everyone has sufficient abilities or capacities in discerning the way forward.

But if indecisiveness is the marker, shifting the imbalance, somehow, is required.

***

As indecisiveness marks us as discontent, equally decisiveness can prove us inwardly very content. Decisiveness is, then, a more direct way to true blessing.

Decisiveness can be that indicator that we have found our fit in the world; at least in the significant compartments of our world.

There is interconnectedness between being inwardly decisive and happy. Those who have found their fit in their world are content. But, equally, finding our fit in the world is more a journey than a destination. Because of change, our ‘fit’ is something to be maintained.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Graphic Credit: Indecisive Swimmer by Katarina Stefanović.