Nobody Can Make Decisions For You: Grappling with Self Doubt and the Internet

One of the most difficult things to accept is that no matter what you do, somebody will always disagree. From something as complicated as who you voted for, down to the simpler matters such as what face wash you use, there will always be articles and arguments leading away from whatever your final decision is.

     I grappled with that a lot as I was growing up. The people around me made light of the concept of ‘subjective truth’, it was either right or wrong and there was no inbetween, and so I wanted to know what the truth was at all times. It wasn’t so much the quest for knowledge as it was me wanting to be on the right side of things, but it became more difficult as I grew older.

     A good example that won’t lead to me being cancelled is Flat Earthers. Despite hundreds of thousands of years of scientific research pointing to the fact that the Earth is round, there are a shocking amount of people who have had a high school education and still believe that the Earth is flat. If you were to debate a Flat Earther long enough, perhaps for weeks on end before you reached this point, there would be a brief moment where you almost understood them. Their argument would call upon you for just a second, whether it was through emotional or berating tactics, and you would wonder whether you were fighting for the wrong side. Then, you’d probably close down Facebook and take a shower while you speculated about the merits of arguing with strangers on the internet-hint: there is none. 

     Humans struggle with wanting to be the smartest and best at all that we do…all the time. Thus there are arguments for and arguments against everything. Once we pick a side it can be hard to change, but also difficult to accept what we’ve chosen without wondering about the other arguments. When germs were first discovered, everyone thought that one guy was nuts, so why is it impossible for us to find out in hundreds of years that the Flat Earthers were correct? So we dig ourselves into a hole, researching and learning and reading the pros and cons until there’s a point where we hardly care at all. 

     It’s easier for those of us who have ‘idols’, politicians and podcast hosts who tell us what to believe and we assume that, because the person who we idolize believes it, it must be true! That’s how we end up with athletes selling us on processed corn products that they sure as hell don’t eat themselves. Running fast doesn’t make somebody a nutritionist or political advisor, but it saves us the trouble of grappling with deciding what side we are going to take on issues. 

     There is a point where we will just have to accept that people will be upset with our decisions, or that there are arguments against whatever we believe. I think that diet is more important than exercise, for example, although there are thousands of articles online claiming that you can eat whatever you want if you workout hard enough. There was a point where I had to turn the computer off and accept what I believed, confident in the fact that there is a point where I’ve done enough research to have an opinion I’m comfortable in.

     There’s nothing wrong with looking into other perspectives, in fact it’s important…to a healthy extent. Your worldviews, product choices, and lifestyle are something that you will have to choose without worrying about making everyone happy, because there is no possible way for that to happen. Unless you just try to believe in everything….but I’m pretty sure that would make your brain explode. 

Thanks for reading! For those just tuning in, I’m Faith Larson, a horror novelist who likes to share her thoughts with the world. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook @ Idiocyreleased