Many Times It Is Doubt That Destroys Everything

Not long ago a well-known tennis player changed his coach. In sports, coaches are usually the first to fall when an athlete or a group of athletes begins to reap poor results. In fact, for this to happen it is not really necessary that the results be bad, it is enough that they are worse than expected. A defeat is enough for doubt to appear, because to doubt, failure is more important than success.

In the rest of life we ​​do not have coaches, but we do have certain variables that we tend to review (recurring) when we perceive, which do not mean that certain problems exist. For example, if we feel weak or tired, we will begin to analyze the hours we sleep or the configuration of our diet. Perhaps these are not the variables that most influence our level of activation, but instead they are the most popular and over which we have the most control.

We doubt, then we exist

Doubt has accompanied man throughout history. There have been doubts that have marked the history of philosophy, such as the destructive doubt of the sophists or the methodical doubt of Descartes. The former, with their doubt, sought the Achilles heel of all certainty, to affirm, precisely, that there was no certainty.

Descartes is undoubtedly the philosopher of doubt or rather, the philosopher of the search for the absence of doubt. His rationalism, apart from facing empiricism, supported his thinking. In it he found the proof of our existence. A proof beyond any doubt: that human beings think. We think because we exist.

Without disparaging philosophy, our doubts are usually much more mundane and in many cases the answer is more pressing. Furthermore, they not only involve concepts, but people also come into play. In doubt, we turn around when we have left the house to check if we have paid for the kitchen or the lights.

But as we say, doubt also affects people. For example, in a crime the testimony of all the people who had a motive and a means to have committed it is doubted. Thus, on the one hand, doubt leads to verification. A check that can become obsessive and that can even end up being ritualized. I wash my hands two or three times in case one is not enough and this ritual works as a momentary escape that produces the anxiety that doubt generates.

Doubt as an engine of change

Doubt is also a driver of change, we saw it at the beginning with the example of the coaches. It seems that for athletes or for teams it means a lower cost of resources to change the coach than to check if the coach is really the part of the gear that does not work. Few wonder if their expectations were realistic, if there has been bad luck or if it is another variable related to the athlete or the group that influences.

Only when the coach has been changed repeatedly are these options contemplated. That is to say, it is verified that the first coach perhaps did not do it badly when later many others pass and the results do not improve. Thus, the process of doubt based on poor perceived results is usually an orderly process. Tidy until it becomes anarchic and even maddening.

In this sense, doubt stimulates us, but it can also saturate us and deteriorate relationships. A few years ago they opened a greengrocer in my neighborhood and the couple that ran it were very friendly. We got along very well and whenever he passed by we chatted for a long time about the weather and other events of life. Nothing momentous.

One fine day a box of apples I used to buy disappeared. I have to say that my taste for apples is a bit gourmet and I think they only sold that kind because I demanded them. Well, they didn’t tell me about the disappearance and it coincided that I didn’t ask them for apples that week.

They, after searching everywhere, concluded that someone had stolen them and began looking for the thief. Of course they didn’t make it from me at first, but later they couldn’t be tempted to do so and used the fact that she hadn’t ordered apples that week as a confirmation of their hypothesis.

It was a rather suspicious marriage. For them, identifying me as a thief meant having control over the person who could steal from them again in the future. His doubt preferred to open that hypothesis and cling to it rather than maintaining a cordial relationship with me.

Doubt and tolerance for uncertainty

In this and other cases, doubt generates uncertainty. An uncertainty that not all human beings tolerate in the same way. In fact, surely you know people who can suffer a lot while waiting for a result, even if their suffering cannot change that result.

This lack of tolerance for uncertainty (or this anxiety in the face of doubt) also manifests itself in situations that are ambiguous or do not have a clear meaning. It happens to most people in the early stages of falling in love. He loves me, he does not love me, he loves me, he does not love me … Gestures that seem to indicate yes, gestures that seem to indicate no. In the middle, the doubt.

In any case, as we have seen, doubt is an element that is part of our life. It is part of the letters that they give us to move around the world. Later, once we start walking, we are responsible for what we do with it, taking into account that poor results and their management can flood us with anxiety or cause us to rush into decision-making.