The Conundrum

I find myself being haunted by the same question over and over again: do I ask and risk getting disappointed or do I stay quiet and feel lonely?

Technically, none of these options are mutually exclusive - you can ask and get what you asked for AND you can say and still feel lonely.

Somehow, they seem to come always intertwined in my own experience.

Divided road by Pine Watt, available at Unsplash.

It is a conundrum.

By definition, a conundrum is “an intricate and difficult problem”, or “a question or problem having only a conjectural answer”. The last one made me also look for the definition of conjuncture, which, by itself, helped the decision about which definition of conundrum to pick. Conjecture is “inference formed without proof or sufficient evidence”.

As much as I talk about my own experience, I still don’t have enough evidence if I, indeed, have to deal with a conundrum or, if ultimately, it is just “drama”. Or simply the ability to make things more complicated than they need to be.

Yes, we all deal with dramas.

The last time I had to deal with this situation I opted to stay quiet and ended up feeling lonely.

I also investigated enough to conclude that it was a bit of drama AND it was not needed.

Easily said than done, right?

How humans get into those down spirals is still a mystery to me. Why do we hold longer on bad news than good news? How does this help us to survive?

I get that retaining a bad experience longer might help us to survive in the wild back in the days. If dinosaurs walk around during the day and you get chased by one, you may want to remember that and leave home a bit later to increase your chances of surviving.

Why it takes a long time to adjust to a new environment/situation might be the better question to ask.

I know, this all sounds a bit crazier than my usual thoughts but I am trying to make a point that, no matter how much we know and understand, we are still some kind of wild life trying to survive in this strange world.

And with that, I end with the question: what would you pick? Ask and risk to be disappointed, or don’t ask and feel lonely?