Hands up who likes overthinking?
No, Nancy, being obsessive about fun nerd stuff is not the same thing. Even if they did finally tell you what baby yoda’s real name actually is. That’s not what I’m talking about. At all.
I’m talking about the thing that brains like to do when there is just too much emotional, physical and mental processing being asked of you in a situation…
Why did I say that to her that one time in 5th grade? What a loser I was 20 years ago. And, by extension, still am.
Why did I double text him that second time? I want him to like me, not think I’m a creepy stalker, like all those other times I broke the imaginary social rules in my head that have condemned me to social pariah hell where we have to wear un-ironically lame 80’s shirts and laugh REALLY awkwardly at things we know aren’t jokes by just want to feel involved with…
Anyway…
You know, that stuff. But slightly less movie-ish, and more what Frank said to Leslie at the water cooler about my potential new promotion being unlikely because of that one too many times I accidentally CC’d the whole floor of HR into a personal email to my cubicle neighbour, that may or may not have once again been about the sheer intensity of my direct boss’s morning breath that was NOT improved by coffee and cheap aftershave that made his shaving rash that much worse. Said neighbours counterpoint about leaving a proper mountainous pile of mints on his desk anonymously, is no longer going to be anonymous either it seems…
Why do we do that?
Why make our lives harder by thinking so much abut all the ripple on effects of stuff that honestly doesn’t really matter? I mean, not getting promoted probably does matter, but you get what I mean…
Well, it mostly becomes a thing by coming to the belief that we have very little advocacy in our own lives. So we spend time and effort and mental real estate in trying to find patterns in and delivering judgement in our own behaviour, in a monumental effort to learn how to control the way we are seen and perceived and talked to, and about, and thought of. And promoted, if that’s a thing for you.
Anxiety and overthinking comes from a place of attempting to predict the future in an attempt to manage how we fit into it. Back in the day, it was why we stayed in caves, castles and careers. We wanted safe and predictable circumstances with which to consider the world and our place in it. our little bastion of power by which to look at the ebb and flow of chaos and order and still have somewhere to sit and believe we’ll be fine within it.
Its why we like and want leaders.
Wait, wait, wait. I’ll rephrase that.
Its why we want good, dependable and invested leaders. Its why alphas are even a thing. If we aren’t the alpha, we want to know that there is someone in our pack who knows what’s going on and has that shit figured out.
How’s that working out for most of us lately?...
If there’s no alpha, if there’s no one to help us make sense of how our world is being shaped, we weirdly start to wonder and speculate on what is going on right now, for everyone, but particularly us. And if that is a lesson that you learnt early, and we are so used to relying on someone else calling the shots, we start to lose control. Especially if there’s no one around to make sense of the situation FOR us anymore (those ever so trustable leaders that the top jobs seem to attract these days...).
And so, we’re left with just us. Sucky old, invalided, cant even pick which type of toast is “healthiest for me” us. Who cant be trusted to not say the right thing to our friends, who presumably actually like us, without making a dogs breakfast of it, let alone make calls about something that actually matters.
The more this situation happens on a small scale, the more its evidence to our neurology that everything, even the small stuff, is a threat. So our brain starts up all those hormonal processes that heighten our ability to “think” our way out of stuff (how often does that work out, brain?...). Which puts us on extra threat detection mode, which means we can’t sleep, or calm down, or feel like there’s any hope of getting to the end of this cycle. More cortisol, less serotonin, all rough.
I mean, it definitely SOUNDS like fun, right?
So, we don’t trust ourselves, we don’t trust anyone or anything else. We don’t trust situations, or people who are supposed to be looking out for us, we don’t trust the words we say, the social acceptability of the things we wear, the food we eat.
And it feels like shit. Of course, it fucking does. Because it’s so overwhelming that we can’t see through the miasma of fear, that we constantly walk through life thinking it’s out to get us. And we live like this so often it starts to become normal. And it becomes so normal that we start to do stuff to keep this “normal” going. Because at least it’s a predictable normal, even if it’s a really really shitty normal.
Have I gone grim enough yet?
No? Thanks for the permission Lou. It gets deeper.
How do we mitigate this feels like shit fun? By disconnecting. From emotions. From life. From the front door. Often with that aid of something to distract us. Netflix. Margaritas. Internet shopping. Crack and hookers. Stuff outside of us that gives our head time away from what’s going on inside of us, that we are willfully ignoring. Which totally works… Because the more we suppress it, the harder it pushes back.
And that’s YOU doing that, pushing back. Because that part of you, even if you don’t want to admit it, KNOWS you aren’t doing what you need to do for yourself. Digging your hole deeper in an attempt to bury yourself in stuff and things, just means you are smothered by it all. There’s only so many ways to say “no, dig UP, stupid” to yourself before you realise that doesn’t work either.
“Well,” I hear you decry, ”What do we do about it, if you’re so smart, huh?”
I’m glad you asked Kent.
How about trying to do something, ANYTHING, that is actually genuinely for YOU (you know, that isn’t hiding or distracting yourself with stuff). What do YOU like, that isn’t so reliant on other people, and definitely not reliant on what they think about the thing and you.
How about putting a few moments of thought into who you really are. Think about the awkward existential questions Tyler asks in Fight Club.
If you can’t think on yourself, you can’t think for yourself.
If you can’t think for yourself, you can’t think on what you want.
If you cant think on what you want, you cant act on what you want.
If you cant act on what you want, you’re dead in the water.
No wonder life is overwhelming and feels shitty…
You can do it though. You can. Just remember that you are more than that stuff, and waaaaay more than the emotional reactions to things that aren’t really you.
I promise you are more than that. Just remember.
Be kind, be smart, be your best you. No bar fights.
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” Rudyard Kipling
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