The Product of Overthinking

A product of overthinking is pausing what you’re doing and wondering whether there is any point at all. You forget why you bothered in the first place. You consider if this is the path you should take?

It makes it sound like there is destiny, and you need to find the right path and make the right choices to lead you to your destiny. As if life was an epic tale. But is it wrong to think in such a way? To an extant yes, when your mind becomes clouded with delusions of grandeur and reality becomes a blur. But not when it simply adds a sense of wonder and magic into your life.

In any case, the struggle of deciding what’s right for you appears to be a lifelong journey. You only hope you look back in hindsight without a lifetime full of regret, but more gratitude on the road you walked along.

Hindsight being the keyword here.

For that is miles away and today you’re filled with uncertainty with the choices laid out to you. Uncertainty also calls along its fellow in arms, anxiety.

Now you’re in this mess, the battle against uncertainty and anxiety, you’re desperate for the tools to bring answers so the war can be won. We seek knowledge, we run through YouTube videos, podcasts and books to help find what we’re looking for. For a way to overcome this obstacle.

So much so, that it becomes our comfort zone. To continually look, listen and watch. Replacing our actions and making us believe we’re doing something. Like false progression.

Eventually we realise that we’ve heard it all before. We know what each person will say, we know the idioms and wisdom spilled. Yes, there is hope that once we’ve heard it a certain way, for the hundredth time it will connect in such a way that it unlocks a certain power within us. We hold onto that hope.

We become aware of all of it and revert back to square one. The problem is not solved.

Sometimes we’re fortunate enough to forget the problem for a while, by continuing to be in the comfort of learning and seeking knowledge. By trying another way and convincing ourselves we know the answer now. Or simply by putting our head down and getting on with the work again. The road we’ve chosen so far.

By now you’re wondering if an answer is coming after all this.

I may not have a cure I’m afraid to say.

Though perhaps a remedy for the symptoms.

To zoom out of the forest of woe, like an outer body experience you float out of it and see the world. See the bigger picture. You get to the main important things. The things that truly matter. Your happiness.

Are you enjoying right now, are you enjoying your journey?

If you are, isn’t that all that really matters? Are you doing the actions you wish to take? How can time be wasted or regretted if you’re enjoying it. Maybe we forget after a while how much fun the past was. We need to find a way to recall these memories. To capture them for future us to be reaffirmed in our decisions.

If you aren’t enjoying right now, then changes do need to be made.

This is where you do need to put your life under a microscope and choose what you’re enjoying, what you aren’t and what you’re willing to sacrifice in order to change it so. But I get it.

What if you don’t know what choices to make?

Make a different one, one you haven’t done. Rule those choices out until you find the one that fits. Trust in yourself to navigate them as they come. As long as you have values and principles that anchor you from doing anything severe to yourself or others, then know you’ll be okay.

Above all else, just like those epic tales. Have courage. Be brave and daring as you go through this adventure.