MIND MOVES: It's a curious thing that tiny animals, which we instinctively regard as unsophisticated compared with ourselves, seem to adapt much more readily to their world than we do to ours.
Their hard-wired genetic programming comes alive right from birth and guides them to behave in exactly the right way to maximise their survival chances.
In contrast, we humans arrive as exceptionally fragile and dependent beings. To adapt and successfully negotiate our way in the world requires us to take in a great deal of information. Like all genetic programming ours is amazing, but it is not sufficient.
Evolution buys us time for additional learning to take place, however. Before emancipating us into this wild world, it prolongs our infancy well beyond that of other species and allows us plenty of opportunity to soak up the knowledge and skills we need to make it alone "out there".
And this learning process never ceases. To keep pace with our changing lives we are required to continually refine and enlarge our understanding. Much of this learning is a natural process: it happens when we bump up against some novel difficulty where we find that our knowledge and our coping strategies are not sufficient. Learning happens through our failures, but this doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable and revitalising, though sometimes our pride is wounded in the process. We resolutely resist change and stubbornly stand firm behind the walls of an identity that may no longer work. We revert to familiar routines and familiar beliefs. After all, these "truths" have been handed down to us by trusted teachers, who surely were more right than wrong.
Our drive to continue to learn is highly adaptive, but it can mean that we hold on unnecessarily to certain characteristics of our childhood, when our learning depended on seeing adults as wiser and more competent in the ways of the world.
If our adult "teachers" were indeed benign and gifted, we enjoyed and benefited from listening to their every word and from being guided by them. Even when the evidence of our own experience contradicted what they said, we acquiesced to their view of the world, believing them to be trustworthy and superior mentors.
At some point, however, life requires us to query that acquiescence; we need to develop a mind of our own. The association between learning and dependency has to be broken, so that we can begin to trust our own ability to learn from life experience - literally to make up our own mind - without always feeling we must defer to others.
Sooner or later, you reach a crisis in life where you are faced with a challenging predicament that requires you to make up your own mind, to speak with your own voice. Friends may offer conflicting advice, often with conviction and persuasive argument, and if you are in the habit of over-valuing what other people think, this only compounds your stress. Who do you listen to? Who will be most upset when we don't take their good advice?
The particular conundrum you face is your personal property, something, that at the end of the day, you alone must resolve. The time comes, when friends have been exhausted of all their wisdom and their best hunches on the matter, and you must walk towards the unknown, alone, and take your best shot. Echoes of other people's voices telling you "What you should do is . . ." need to fade into the background, so that you can hear your own voice, and own your own truth.
These are critical moments, because they may define and shape the course of your future. They can also be lonely and scary times, because there is rarely any certainty that the position you adopt, the decision you make, will be the right one. This isn't about the goalkeeper's fear of the penalty, this is about the penalty-taker's fear. The whistle blows and there's no one to tell you which corner of the net to go for, just an incomprehensible din from the stands.
If you have any hope that a column like this can direct you precisely on how to act in these moments to ensure a successful outcome, I'm afraid you will be disappointed. But sometimes naming something and describing it can make an issue less daunting. It's important to recognise these crises when they arise and to regard them as opportunities for growing independence and self-reliance. Accept these moments and commit yourself to moving towards them, rather than away from them.
Surprising, unforeseen solutions often come when we engage honestly with our experience and allow our own mind on the matter to become clear. It can take time, and it can require patient support from others who believe in you and in your capacity to resolve your dilemma, but who also recognise that this is your call. And that, ultimately, you have to make that call alone.
Tony Bates is principal psychologist at St James's Hospital, Dublin.
