They have my back

Sometimes you sit and wonder if who you are and what you're doing in life is right. Or good. Or meaningful. And in almost every decision that you make, there are multiple considerations that only you can understand. When there is no one that you can share it with, for someone like me, it can be a very lonely world. I like to consult, confide, thrash things out with someone else before I make decisions. May not be the most efficient and independent way to operate, I admit. But this is my way of acknowledging that I do not know everything, and hoping that my discussions with friends, family, colleagues, even strangers would provide insight and broaden my perspective on things. But sometimes, when you can't tell other people some of your most private thoughts because you're afraid that they might judge you (or even worse, because it affirms to yourself that you are in fact the type of person that you've always vowed not to be), that's when, I think, the consultation process will be doomed to fail.

I recently had to make a fairly big decision. It was one in which there were many things that I had to consider. I ultimately made my choice - the result of which will be a mixture of the complete unknown and some things that I know. I was excited at first, but slowly I find out more things and they throw my decision into question. Grrr.. Talk about a wet blanket. These things would have saved me the trouble of making that big decision. I might have been able to go into something that I knew, and would have happily gone into, but there's no use thinking about that now.

On the other hand - and this comes back to my original question of how we know if we're doing something right - the show of support that I have received since me secondment (at the end of last year) from a handful or so of people has been quite an eye-opener. Some I've gotten close to, and others I didn't even think would care. What they've said to me has caught me completely off-guard, and I may never get a chance to tell them how much it has meant to me, or that they have brightened my day/week - probably too mushy for the real world, especially guys. But those are comments which, although they might not have thought much of it, mean the world to me and gives me a bit of comfort that I just might be doing alright in the world after all - people don't hate me or think that I'm a dud/bimbo! Sometimes we think we're doing the right thing - or we hope so - and it's nice to know that we're on the right track.