Self-Doubt Was The Cause Of The Cold War
And God Is The Answer
Ohh, the lovely self-doubt. I’m sure you all know him well. Destroyer of opportunities, breaker of great relationships, (most likely) the motivation behind nuclear bombs… Self-doubt is that reliable old friend, always there to hold you back and fuck up your life.
The Cold War was a monumental historical event that brought every nation in the world to poop their pants for 45 years straight. It was the biggest generator of self-doubt to the date. It was also created by the fear and doubt of the American and Russian presidents.
For 45 damn years they “fought” a battle of self-doubt and fear against each other. 45 years living on a ledge that could break in any second just by clicking a button. And if that happened… then BOOM…
This is just an example of what can happen when humans are driven by self-doubt. Yep, that’s how bad it can get.
The thing is, is that the Cold War is still happening, but this time at a much smaller scale, and within yourself. Your right side of the brain (Russia), fighting your left side of the brain (America) creating a period of doubt and hesitation that can last a long time.
The problem is that during these periods where you are fighting against yourself, ━ lost in doubt and undecided of what to do, who to be, or how to act ━ your spirit rots away as if it were a lonely apple, fallen to the ground and at the mercy of insects and decay.
The Problem With Self-Doubt And Its Negative Effects
Self-doubt is definitely an emotion in which you don’t want to be stuck for too long.
Dr. Cynthia Thaik wrote this in one of her articles, and I couldn’t agree more;
“Self-doubt is one of the major obstacles to living the life you truly deserve. This unhealthy food for the soul drags down your spirit, crushes your ambitions, and prevents you from achieving all that you can. Often, these feelings of weakness or incompetence stem from childhood and become ingrained in our very being. Over time, self-doubt can lead to problems with anxiety and depression. That can lead to serious physical ailments like weight gain, high blood pressure, chronic fatigue, and even increased mortality rates among those with heart disease.”
Yet, most of us are not aware of its danger. In fact, I wasn’t aware of it either, until I started working on my personal growth.
When I started this blog I was doubting an innumerable amount of things. I doubted myself, my intellect, my capabilities, and my understanding. ━Is this going to work? Or is that idea better? What about the other idea? And what about my friend’s opinion?…
Those moments were, and still are, the worst moments of my blogging experience. They always end up the same way; not using any of the ideas I have come up with, sitting on the sofa, eating crisps, and watching anime until it gets late and I am “done” with work.
Not long ago, I sat down in one of those moments and I started to dig deeper into the roots of the problem, and then I realized. I understood that I was experiencing self-doubt. Because I didn’t believe in myself, all those great ideas were thrown into the bin because I didn’t even try to make them happen.
Why didn’t I even try when I still knew they were good ideas? Because I was doubting myself, and allowing myself to sink into the black hole of self-doubt and fear. In that black hole, the same crap comes to my mind again, and again ━ Is my idea good enough? Am I good enough? Other people can probably do it better. I’m not sure if I can make it with my current skills. I should wait…
Meanwhile, my confidence and my energy were leaving my body and when I realized it, it was already too late. There I was, eating crisps, watching anime, and making myself feel miserable for not doing anything…
I think we’ve all had enough of that. However, our doubts are there for a reason.
Self-Doubt Kept Us Going All This Time
“All healthy human beings have an inner stream of thoughts and feelings that include criticism, doubt, and fear. That’s just our minds doing the job they were designed to do: trying to anticipate and solve problems and avoid potential pitfalls.” Source: Harvard Business Review
As the Harvard people say, our brain is wired to criticize, doubt, and fear. Back when we were only 200 homo sapiens on earth, we were in constant danger and lived in fear. If you knew to doubt your ability to fight a tiger and win, you were probably going to last longer than the guy that thought he could!
Our brains developed in a way that allowed us to survive. To criticize the environment, always doubt safety, and fear your surroundings to keep yourself alert of danger. This, for many years, was absolutely necessary for all of our ancestors in order to avoid extinction.
Otherwise, now we’d be sitting in a museum next to the Dodo with a golden plaque that says ━“the second most stupid creature that ever lived on earth”.
Doubt is basically the manifestation of self-consciousness, uncertainty, and intensive questioning of the truth, and what kept us alive back then!
Nowadays, Instead Of “Doubting” We Need To Develop “Questioning”
Doubting was necessary back then but now, without saber tooth tigers and big mammals to run away from, our mechanism of self-defense has turned against us. That’s why I believe we need to switch perspectives. We need to change doubting for questioning.
“Doubting and questioning are not necessarily the same thing. Questioning is seeking to gain further information in order to better understand what God has said. Doubting, on the other hand, involves believing what we think, see, or feel rather than what we know He has said.” –James 1:1–8
Doubt is fueled by the fear of being eaten by a huge tiger or dying from starvation, whereas questioning fuels us, using curiosity and a drive to understand, so we may better face our problems.
Disclaimer: Don’t get me wrong. I am not religious and do not personally believe in the Church’s all-mighty version of God. But change the word “God” from the word “You” in this text and you will have a great answer. Here is the other part of the text edited a little bit;
“It’s natural for us to question when we’re suddenly overwhelmed by a distressing turn of events. God(You) understands our(your) struggle and wants us(you) to come to Him(yourself) with our(your) pain and confusion. Sometimes He(You) has to sift our thinking by reminding us(you) of His(your) truth or His(your) past faithfulness to us in a similar situation.”
So, even old Jamesy-boy back a few hundred years ago understood that it is in our nature “to question when we’re suddenly overwhelmed by a distressing turn of events.” When that happens, we need questioning and self-reflection to not fall into the black hole of self-doubt.
Something happens and one action has to be taken and you need to create doubt to put your brain to think about that action. But that process should not last long and should be driven by curiosity and pragmatism and not by fear and lack of self-confidence.
Come to yourself. Ask yourself and you will find the answer. Trust yourself. You will overcome self-doubt. Remind yourself:
“Even though we may not understand all that God(you) is doing through our trials, we can rely on what He’s(you’ve) revealed: The testing of our (your) faith produces endurance and spiritual maturity, and it supplies something we lack. Knowing this, we can trust the Lord (yourself) to accomplish His (your) good and perfect will through the situation — and rejoice in how He(you) will transform us(you).”
(I hope Mr. God or the Pope doesn’t punish me too much for tainting the “holy scriptures”, but this is what makes more sense to me.)
A Little Summary
After all these years of evolution, wars, and religion, as I wrote above, we’ve come to a point that we don’t need our self-doubt anymore to face extinction or fight our neighbor country for a nonsense ideal.
However, we do still need that doubt, that questioning, to develop our potential as problem solvers. We must learn to do it by staying as little as possible in the emotion of doubt as possible, so it doesn’t rot away our spirit and good intentions.
Use the gift of your own reasoning to create greater things than yourself. Don’t let this gift destroy all the good things you can do. Overcome your self-doubt and turn it into questioning. You know what to do now. It’s up to you to put it into practice.
This article was previously published by Dario Navaro at growingyourwildlife.com.
