"I Don't Know"

A friend is in the midst of career transition (I know, get in line). She’s clear about what she does not want to do anymore; about how her work has sucked the joy out of her life and left her among the walking dead.

She tells me about dreams she's had of being in a lovely garden, then realizing that vines within the garden have begun to wrap themselves around her feet and ankles, slowly winding their way up her legs and preventing her from moving.

Well! Can’t get much clearer than that!

However, when asked what she wants to do next, **crickets.**

To break down the question, I asked about her passions.

“I don’t know,” she said, exasperated. “I can’t come up with an answer! What the hell does THAT mean?”

I’m not saying that I know what it means. Sometimes, “I don’t know” means just that: “I don’t know.”

In my experience, “I don’t know” usually is code for “I don’t want to think about this, because if I do, it may mean that I have to choose a course of action or change, and change is scary because I might make the wrong decision, and I don’t know if I can survive that.”

Whew.

In other words, “I don’t know” can be an acknowledgement of fear. And fear rarely provides a good basis for decision making.