The rhythm of deciding

When we have to decide, we come face to face with fear, and fear paralyzes.

Marcela Infante writes, very bravely in my opinion, about what it means to be afraid:

“I was so afraid that I packed everything into a backpack. I was so afraid that I zipped the backpack shut, but the fears kept following me, because, of course, I was carrying them stuck to my back. Nobody can carry this for long, I told myself one fine day, but before doing anything about it I went on being afraid. A fear I could feel below my navel. I was so afraid that I wrote. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I was so afraid that I sank into a bar, serving beer with lots of foam to a bunch of strangers. I dozed off at a yellow-bus stop at Román Díaz and Providencia. I was so afraid that I froze in a strange way.”

Fear freezes us, and stops us, and keeps us from making a decision.

There are people very dear to me who are afraid right now, because they face great uncertainties. They would like to know whether their decisions will be the right ones, and they look at me and ask: what should we do?

What do you tell them, especially when they trust you and you are their support, when they trust you? Are you going to deny an answer to the people you love?

I tend to be very square, and closed and inflexible at times, and I was thinking about these things when I caught a glimpse of an answer at the end of Marcela Infante’s text:

“I was so, so afraid that I left everything for later. Because people have rhythms, like a song, and songs are all different and come in different tempos. That happens. That happened.
The fear is gone.”

I’ve talked a lot about how you have to make decisions and act, but without considering the importance of timing, the fact that we all have different rhythms.

That we have the right to be afraid, and that maybe it’s good to let the storms pass for a bit.

It’s true, you have to act, you have to make decisions, but you have to take your time. Sometimes the beat is set by your heart, sometimes it comes from a drum out there. Listen and find the right tempo. Don’t let your decisions be rushed.

— To Matías, my son, who fills me with pride, and to Kika, his mother, my wife: I love you.