Beyond Reasonable Doubt

Having the luxury to even listen to those whispers of but what if? just as you're about to take a leap is probably a privilege in itself.

Because it is a sign that you have options, safety nets, and the mental space to contemplate choices rather than merely react to necessity.

The voice of doubt, dressed in the respectable clothes of reason, presents itself as wisdom, as protection, as prudence.

But there's another kind of knowing, which we never really arrive at through examining spreadsheets.

At 3 am, your gut wakes you with a clarity that is so sharp it cuts through the darkness when you finally realize the job you've been clinging to is actually draining your soul, for example.

It's the knowing that doesn't need to explain itself because it simply is.

Anatomy of Doubt

Doubt wears many faces.

There's the doubt of inexperience, which usually fades with practice.

Your hands gripped the wheel with tight-knuckled uncertainty when you first learned to drive.

And you navigate through traffic while debating your dinner plans when that once-overwhelming task has become second nature.

Then there's the doubt of wisdom, a healthy questioning that prevents disaster.

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The pause before sending that angry email. Second thoughts before making a major purchase.

And then again there's the doubt of fear. The paralyzing kind that keeps brilliant books unwritten, businesses unlaunched, and hearts unspoken for.

What if she rejects your vulnerable truth? So you stay silent, rehearsing the perfect words that will never leave your lips.

Between all three, the last one is the most insidious because it masquerades as prudence.

Experientially, trying to solve it with more reason doesn't really work. It merely creates a rather negative feedback loop.

Conviction Transcends Reason

One of the strongest forms of inspiration for me is any act that defies physical possibility or any other possibility in general.

For example, the parent who lifts a car to save their child.

I don't think we humans really comprehend how profound such moments are when love and necessity create a temporary superhuman experience, bypassing what science says should be impossible.

For the most part, it reveals how artificial our constraints often are.

Or an artist who works in obscurity for decades, compelled by a vision only they can see.

None of these acts makes "reasonable" sense.

If you had asked any of these people to provide logical evidence for their conviction—to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they would succeed—they couldn't have done it.

What they had instead was something deeper.

Conviction Gives Purpose

Here's where words fall short.

But for the sake of our shared understanding, let's say this 'something deeper' is intuitive conviction, which can simply be defined as a knowing that transcends evidence.

Of course, such a kind of conviction doesn't emerge from nowhere.

In some cases, it grows from the soil of purpose, i.e when you've aligned with something greater than momentary comfort or conventional success.

I think a lack of purpose is one of the main contributors to the restless dissatisfaction that, with modern people, feels increasingly difficult to remedy with consumption alone.

I have a friend who left a lucrative corporate career to start a small school in her community.

On paper, it obviously was madness, trading security for struggle and certainty for risk.

Even though the community was very welcoming, it took nearly three years before the school operations stopped looking like a bottomless financial pit.

A core memory of this episode that keeps coming back to me was when I asked her why and she simply mentioned that she couldn't see herself at retirement having not tried this.

Sure, Not Sure

I think having purpose creates a different relationship with doubt, in that it changes doubt from something to be feared into something to be navigated.

This is particularly insightful when it's layered with the need for complete certainty in a world that's progressively uncertain.

Learn to say, "Listen John, I don't know how exactly, but I'm going to find out."

Start with small things. Make choices from your gut and observe the results. Like any muscle, intuition strengthens with use.

You can simultaneously hold space for unshakable commitment and healthy questioning.

I'm convinced that technology is disconnecting us from what matters, but could be wrong about whether the problem is the screen itself or how we've been subconsciously guided towards passive consumption than active engagement?

The doubt you face today could well become the story you tell tomorrow about the obstacles you overcame.


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