Confusion can be good. I believe strongly that when a person becomes confused because of learning new world views, different ways of thinking about a problem, or presented with new information that contradicts what they believe that this confusion means that they themselves are beginning to change.
That they are less certain as to what they should believe. This then leads to the beginning of new patterns of thought. These new patterns will, over time, lead to new choices for the individual. New choices then lead to different outcomes.
But can confusion hide itself from us?
I believe it can. There are many times when we are confused and really don’t know it. The symptom that will shed light on this is when we work really hard to achieve something and we never get there. Nothing works even when we put a lot of time in. Things get even more “messed up” the more we become involved.
Discouraging beyond belief. Leads many of us to quit.
What I have personally found, that when I find myself in these situations (there have been many) it wasn’t because the situations were unsolvable. I was confused about what was important. I was confused about the way the different pieces fit together. My confusion lead to poor thinking.
While working hard, trying to help and be effective, I never really understood that I was confused. I was certain I knew what was going on. I was certain that the words used to describe the issue I understood well. And yes, the fact that I have used “I” so much in this paragraph, means my ego was blinding me to the possibility that I was confused about something or things.
Clarity is the antidote for confusion. What’s difficult is that it requires us to have the energy to search, question, and listen to things that may be new to us. To “re-listen” to things told to us but that we never really understood the first time.
You see, our problems and frustrations always seem unsurmountable. What we don’t realize is that others walked with similar struggles. The trick is to find where confusion hides in our mind and work to erase it with new information that could be more helpful.
It’s always better to try to do this rather than simply giving up. There is always a different way that may work. Always.