Relatively Absolute

Sure, I make a lot of problems for myself, but I want to get things right. This bad habit shows up whenever I take one of those surveys that attempt to determine what I'm qualified for, how I think, or how I respond to whatever it is they're checking.

I, frankly, just don't know how to answer many of the questions, and since I'm determined to be truthful in all of my responses, I'm rarely happy with my answers.

The questions, themselves, are simplicity itself and are written to determine my feelings. They often ask me to decide how I feel about something and give me the chance to strongly agree, strongly disagree, or take some less dramatic stance or, by using some similar scale, to mark down how important something is to me.

Like I said, the thing is, I just don't know.

My problem stems from my uncertainty. I may think I'm strongly opposed to something, but I worry that my strong opposition may, in fact, only be a moderate dislike. I think I strongly support some pronouncement, but since I only have my own mind to judge these things by and no true absolute, I'm hesitant to mark an answer that may, in fact, be incorrect.

This sort of thing comes up all the time when I talk to doctors or dentists, too. "How much pain are you in?" seems like a pretty straightforward question, but I have no independent scale upon which to base my answer. I worry, a lot, about if what I consider a lot of pain is something everyone else just shrugs off, so I usually limit my answer to the truthful "I notice it."

This answer, of course, helps the attending doctor and myself not at all, but at least I don't worry if I'm misleading him or her, blowing things out of proportion, or acting like some macho asshole.