Doubt

A hero is someone who, in spite of weakness, doubt or not always knowing the answers, goes ahead and overcomes anyway. – Christopher Reeve 

Doubt – I don’t think there is a single person alive who can honestly say he has never felt it. Whether it’s about if he should go on a date, ask someone out, if a job is right for him, and various other issues. Doubt, like other negative emotions, can drive us to dark places if we let it. The problem is that so many of us have no clue how to best deal with doubt, myself included. So I want to talk about my overall experience with doubt, in the hopes that it may help someone to better manage their own.

Some of you may know that I am a Nursing major, and some of you may even know from firsthand experience what that is like. It’s hard. It is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my entire life in terms of academics. Granted, I came into this program knowing it would be hard, but it’s surpassed all my expectations.  Recently I’ve been questioning if this program is right for me. I want to help people – I need to help people no matter what I do for a career.  I just know I need to help. That said, nursing is so high stress all the time, I question whether or not I will be able to handle it. I question whether or not I will really enjoy it. I often wonder if all this is because of where my clinical placement is right now, and the tasks to which I am currently assigned.  I can’t say for sure at this time because it’s all been wearing me down.  I don’t know whether or not I need to switch majors. I don’t know if I stick with nursing and end up hating it, what will I do? Things like this have been eating away at me and for the past couple weeks, it’s been really bad to the point where I’ve become depressed which doesn’t help my grades. It’s just a negative cycle that I’ve kept repeating and repeating. I doubt that this is all right for me and I predispose myself to not liking it, and that only serves to make things worse because I realize I am not giving myself a fair chance.

My friends and family have both talked to me and encouraged me to keep going and to give Nursing a try.  They say things like it will get better, and doubts are normal.  My doubt makes me question if it ever really will get better. Over this past weekend, I’ve realized that I am only making things worse by letting my doubts wear on me that I will only further dig myself into depression by allowing them to be the focus of my every thought. So I’ve decided to adopt a new attitude, or to at least attempt to. I want to take things as they come, and approach both my major and my life with an open mind. Otherwise, my life will only continue to become more miserable, and I don’t want that.  However, a reasonable amount of doubt is healthy because living life with 100% certainty isn’t healthy either. As Voltaire said ““Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.”  So while I will not ignore the enormity of the unknown, I will do my best to take it one day at a time.