I struggle a lot with ambiguity;. I hate leaving events and tasks up in the air, with no precise date and time for their completion. But the sad truth is: ambiguity is unavoidable. It’s one of those things we’re expected to just accept, though it pains us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ve spent much of this semester loathing the ambiguity surrounding me, desperate to have some certainty about where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing after graduation. I’m now 9 days away from graduation and still<\/em> don’t have this certainty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One would imagine that I’m having a mental breakdown right now, considering my unhappy relationship with ambiguity. (And it’s true that I get a little flustered and teary-eyed when anyone brings up graduation or the days after). But I’ve actually made peace with the ambiguity, at last. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I had a revelation last week. The thing about my life right now is that it’s only ambiguous to a point<\/em>. It’s true that I don’t know what I’m doing, but I have a handful of options, jobs I’m waiting to receive or be rejected from, and I have a plan for every scenario. So even though I don’t know what<\/em> I’m doing or where<\/em> I’ll be, I know I’ll be doing something<\/em>, somewhere<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This revelation reminded me of the Yerkes-Dodson Law in psychology. Essentially, the law states that when we’re under stress to perform (e.g. an important exam, a play-off game), we actually perform better if we have a little stress weighing on us. If we’re not stressed enough, we don’t see the importance of performing well, and thus perform more poorly. Likewise, if we’re too stressed, we can’t concentrate to do the task well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the same way, I think too little ambiguity in life would be detrimental. One would fall into an endless routine, a life lacking spontaneity and fun. On the other hand, if nothing were certain in life, we’d absolutely crumble — or at least I would, since I’m so indecisive. Having some ambiguity leaves life a bit more open, free to possibility and excitement. Opportunities to strike while the iron is hot. Yet at the same time, some things are known and reliable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That said, I do hope my particular ambiguity ends by the time I graduate, otherwise the stress of family coming, friends saying goodbye, and the need to move all of my crap will be overwhelming if I’m also still job hunting. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I struggle a lot with ambiguity;. I hate leaving events and tasks up in the air, with no precise date and time for their completion. But the sad truth is: ambiguity is unavoidable. It’s one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ponderings"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1514,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513\/revisions\/1514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excrcl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}