The Way Doubt Can Make Life Easier

I have always been uncertain to things that I do which also makes me indecisive. I tend to doubt the people around me even my own family. I tend to have second thoughts in choices that I am about to make. I have doubts about my abilities. I even doubt myself and my existence. And I thought that it was a bad habit of mine, that it was unhealthy. I mean like I probably have trust issues, indecisiveness, and lack of confidence.

But today, realizations drawn on me “we must doubt everything”, a phrase from Rene Descartes. So, I have set aside all my worries and organized a spare time for myself to reflect. That single phrase made me question my view on doubt.

I often tell myself that I should always be certain with the things around me because that is the way it should be. That I should be sure of assuming things and not just randomly concluding without thinking it through. I feel like when I tried to doubt everything I would not get as far as doubting anything. I had a lot of insecurities growing up that probably lead me to self-doubt. I am not in a hundred percent in everything I do. I even doubt if I am currently fine like how I act in front of other people. Like I am living in a confused life. Like I do not even know myself. I also got deceived by some people around me which probably made it worst. I had so much putting up with this vagueness. Living this life with full of doubt had me thinking that there is something wrong with me. That I had to do something about it. I thought of a mindset that I will have to fix my habit and get rid of uncertainty in order to live an unpuzzled life. That was my plan, until I happen to read a single phrase and that marked on my mind. Rene Descartes’ view, however, was the opposite of mine. He believed that we must doubt and continue to doubt everything. We must doubt whether our own reasoning abilities can be trusted. We must doubt that we are existing, His point is that we cannot be sure that what we experience as being real in the world is actually real. Hence, doubting is way of distinguishing real from not, true from devious, and genuine people from two-faced. It absolutely made me withdraw from my planned mindset. Doubting is a part of decision-making in life. Doubting is way of recognizing people to be trusted. Doubting is a way of validating things. It finally came to me that doubting was not a hostile act at all.

We all have different ways in interpreting the things around us, as well as the Philosophers. Rene Descartes taught me that doubting is a safe thing to do when everything that we know is not certain. I refuse to stop doubting now that I am finally enlightened that it is a way of surviving uncertainty.