Day 54: Either/Or

My thinking often gets stuck in false dichotomies. I imagine that I will either have a job / partner / apartment / body that is perfect (and permanent), or it is entirely meaningless and ugly and terrible. This has never happened to me, and will never happen to me, and yet seems to be a deeply ingrained belief that I hold. I also often set myself up with false choices. For instance, if there are two potential jobs or apartments, I will choose the best option between the two of them, even if I don't really like either one that much. I tell myself that these are my options, and so I choose, rather than thinking about what it is that I truly want, and then trying to pursue that genuine goal, independently of what I can see directly in front of me.

Our society loves to set up these false decisions to keep us from truly thinking outside the boxes that have been set up for us. I know this, and yet often fall into either/or thinking. When I consider work and relationship decisions, there are so many unexplored possibilities that are not pre-packaged options. I think of myself as a creative and innovative person, someone who has certainly defied several binaries that have been placed upon me, and yet I still fall into the either/or trap over and over again. I want to pursue my own dreams, the ones with no predetermined labels, no instruction manual written by someone else. This can only happen if I can grow beyond comparing each choice, each option, each decision within the internal logic of our society. Another world is happening, and I want to live there.