"The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts." ~ Marcus Aurelius
Rethinking is widespread. And everyone is asking us to stop. Articles like these are abundant:
"7 signs that you are an overthinker"
"13 strategies to stop rethinking"
"9 tips to overcome over-thinking"
The over-thinker in me is beginning to question the effectiveness of all this well-meaning advice. If it were that easy to stop, there can't be that much of it yet.
I can't help but wonder if we are too negative about rethinking. Could rethinking be a part of human nature that actually benefits? Wouldn't evolution have removed this useless feature by now?
Certainly the universe has made no mistake in giving people a brain that is so prone to rethinking. Surely the over-thinkers among us are not mistakes?
Yes, I often feel like a mistake when I am told "you think too much" and "don't think it over". Is something wrong with me?
Years of thinking before making a life decision
As long as I know, I've thought a lot. This served me well in school and at work as I was recognized for my analytical skills and rigorous thinking.
However, when it comes to personal matters such as family, relationships or work problems, my deep thinking power is considered to be rethinking.
A few years ago I was faced with a failed marriage and a challenging new job advertisement. In the midst of the stress and unhappiness, my brain kept thinking about what was happening and what I could do.
As I thought and thought, the situation seemed pretty hopeless. I wanted to leave the marriage – but what about our child, our financial obligations, our religion, our close families? I wanted to leave the job – what if I couldn't find a better job because of my age, my professional experience, my poor job market and my factors?
When I tried to share all of these thoughts with friends, I often received the comment "you are rethinking".
At first I thought the problem was really me. I wish I wasn't such an over-thinker.
But have I really thought about it? These were important factors. Shouldn't we think about it carefully before making decisions?
It hurt when people rejected the fears and worries that surfaced when I thought deeply about the issues. Since they didn't want to try to understand, I guess I just had to stop telling them.
I can now confidently say that without the strictness of my thoughts I would not have had a relatively smooth divorce and a change of job in the same period. They weren't made out of luck – they came out of careful, thorough consideration that enabled me to take steps to mitigate possible failures.
I planned and carried out my divorce and job change like a multimillion dollar deal. For others, it might have been rethinking. It was necessary for me to think.
The definition of overthinking – inherently negative
Rethinking itself is already defined negatively. Overthinking, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is "the act of thinking too much about something in a way that is not useful."
Let me take a closer look at the two descriptors in the definition.
First, “too much” is a very subjective term. There has to be a “just right” level as a basis for comparison. Isn't there a fine line between "thinking too much" and "thinking just right"? Where you draw this line is most likely different from where I draw it.
And just as there is the possibility of "too much", there is also the possibility of "too little". Failure to adequately address problems can be just as, if not more, damaging.
Second, “not useful” is also a very subjective term. Let me give you a simple example:
A young girl goes to a supermarket to buy peppers for her mother. Her mother forgot to specify the color of the pepper she wanted. The young girl looks at the variety of paprika in the supermarket and ponders for a long time which color to buy.
If you had stood by the girl and watched her, you might think, “Why is it taking so long for her to make a decision? She needs to rethink, just choose a color! “It definitely doesn't make sense for you to think about the color of the pepper to buy.
But the girl knows differently. Your mother has a temper that few can tolerate. The last time she brought home normal carrots instead of baby carrots, her mother had had a fit, screamed loudly and berated her for being stupid. Think carefully about what color of paprika to buy so that the girl can avoid the same punishment.
Although her mother did not specify the color, the girl carefully remembers what dish her mother might have prepared and whether her mother had previously used a particular color. It takes longer than usual, but she makes a calculated guess.
What is useful to you may not be useful to you or me. Do we have enough information to be able to judge?
By the way, that little girl was me.
Why is useful thinking so often mistaken for rethinking?
People generally do not have the time or patience to listen. And we are not particularly effective at articulating and summarizing our thoughts well.
Without sufficient information and understanding about the life of the other, the judgment that many of us are rethinking can easily arise.
Think about it, how many people in your life have really spent time understanding your problems and thought processes?
One or two good friends? And maybe therapists and counselors who get paid to do it. Often, after listening to our problems, these friends and therapists understand where we are from and help us become more clear about our problems.
If we think about a problem a lot, we will likely break it down into great depths – we see all angles, the positive and the negative. The problem is that we tend to talk more about the negative aspects of a problem and give the impression that we are only thinking negatively (= not useful, therefore rethinking).
When I speak for myself, I tend to assume that the positive parts of a problem are obvious and do not need to be discussed in depth. It's the negative parts that warrant focus because they need to be mitigated or resolved.
So how do we deal with useful thinking?
Thinking is a human superpower. Given how complex the human brain is, we should be surprised that we are able to think a lot.
This Scientific American article estimates that the storage capacity of the brain is about 2.5 petabytes (or one million gigabytes), with more than a trillion connections between a billion neurons. This is roughly equivalent to storing three million hours of television broadcasts (or keeping the television running continuously for more than 300 years).
If this is the storage capacity of our brain, what about its processing capacity? It is known that the human brain is much more efficient than computers at processing. What a computer could calculate in a few million steps can be achieved by a few hundred neuron transmissions in the human brain (see "The human brain versus supercomputers … which wins"). In addition, humans are able to advance planning and decision making, humor and morals (BBC Science Focus).
This superior cognitive ability sets us apart from other animals. The same power of thinking, it seems, also makes us prone to overthinking.
What we can do to harness this tremendous thinking power is to make sure that most, if not all, of our thinking is useful thinking. Here are four quick principles to keep in mind:
1. As you think about it, make a conscious effort to clarify the issues with the aim of making a decision or a plan of action within a certain period of time. (We like a little what we do in our work.)
Note: The decision not to do anything about a problem at the moment (e.g. a failed marriage) because there are too many restrictions (e.g. the welfare of the children) is also a decision. If we think about it carefully, we can better understand the situation and either accept it or do something to change things.
2. Recognize when thinking gets stuck and leads to confusion or fear. This is the case when it can be useful to speak to someone about it.
3. It is okay to be selective about who to speak to. Some people will not have the patience or sincerity to listen to our problems and will likely judge us to be rethinking.
4. When you are talking to someone about problems, it is good to address both the positive and negative aspects. This helps people understand that we have considered the problem from many angles before zooming in on certain parts that need to be addressed.
Distinguishing between useful thinking and rethinking
Perhaps we can generally say that thinking is not useful when it leads to prolonged periods of confusion, fear or inability to make a decision.
Conversely, thinking can be seen as very useful when thinking a lot about something, which ultimately leads to greater clarity, careful planning and solid decisions.
The only people who can really differentiate between useful thinking and overthinking are ourselves and the people who understand us well.
As the saying goes, nobody walked in our shoes. Our childhood, upbringing and decades of life experience determine the context of our thought patterns.
Let us not be so quick to judge that we or other people rethink. Have we really listened and tried to understand?
I am not denying the fact that there can be medical reasons when we often think that this is not useful. Much has been written about overthinking as a symptom of anxiety and depression.
But we should also refrain from passing judgment or assigning an illness to an action so quickly that many of us take action at least sometimes, if not often.
I am sure that philosophers and sages for centuries (like Seneca, Confucius and Gandhi) were viewed as over-thinkers in their day. But how useful their thoughts have been to benefit and inspire generations.
While analysis paralysis is a real problem, I would prefer to err on the side of caution when making important life decisions if I think too much than too little.
About M. Lish
M. Lish writes and designs on ModernBattles.com to understand the daily struggles we wage to meet the expectations of modern society. She explores topics that are important to us (such as careers, love, and self-esteem), particularly how a lack of socially defined success affects our self-esteem and prevents us from loving ourselves for who we really are. ModernBattles.com aims to give hope and healing on our way to being authentic.
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