OVERTHINKING – CURSE OF THE HUMAN BRAIN

All my life, for as long as I can remember the flow of my brain was constantly processing and processing and PROCESSING, since those childhood years when I started making my own decisions I haven’t been able to turn my brain off, even when I’m sleeping the dreams of what has been draining up my mind all day continues to haunt me, often in inexplicable forms and contents, no wonder my partner complains about how I sleep I am fighting wars of decision-making or dying over and over again in the most embarrassing moments of my life.
Even the most trivial things should have I worn this shirt today to work, should I sit in the first bench in the classroom will I look like a nerd or maybe sit in the back with the cool kids, or somewhere in middle ; why did I answer I’m good when she asked me what are you doing, will he like me in this pants, to the important stuff that actually should be thought through more but of course not agonized about like in my case if I go to this faculty I can work this and that, but if I go there it might be better for this and that, should I study abroad or not, should I accept that internship, is this someone I could spend the rest of my life with, is my mom right about what should I study; why didn’t I say this answer when the professor asked me that question or when that girl said that to me, ok maybe this had to be mention into the trivial dialogues of my head but it doesn’t matter you get the picture, you found yourself in one of these self eating thoughts.

Ernest Hemingway says: “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest things I know”, but what is that in intelligent people that kills their own happiness? What I classify in intelligent people, (I am not sure if that is what Hemingway thought as well or not but not important for our current discussion :D) , in this case, is not the people with PhD, masters or successful entrepreneurs, artist or sports people, it’s the people that are self aware, that are aware of their surroundings, of the world and all that is going on it. So who or what is the happiness killer, yes you guessed it right it is OVERTHINKING EVERYTHING! Money, relationships, work and all the elements of life effect our spiritual and mental wellbeing but what sucks our happiness is constantly thinking and obsessing over the negative parts in all of these life elements.

So now that we pinpointed the problem how do we fix it, how do we achieve to think and analyze our decisions, dreams, actions, life and people around us but the moment when it starts being useful, logical and productive and starts being destructive and leading you towards anxiety and depression STOP IT, KILL IT AND KICK IT’S BEHIND (let’s keep it classy but you know what first came to my mind). The truth is I do not have the recipe for everyone not even for myself all the time, it’s all an everyday work but you start by differentiating what is a real problem and what is a made up problem, then you start writing down all the things that you are constantly spinning in your head and are make you turn around in bed until the sunset and then you time yourself to think about them give yourself 20 minutes to freak out and then you watch a TV show, you read a book, you write an article, you take a shower, you imagine being in Maldives or wherever but you stop the thoughts and whenever you feel the ghosts coming back you again push yourself and occupy your mind with positive stuff that don’t eat you up and as time passes managing your thoughts and with that your happiness and inner well being will be easier and easier, I mean it goes from almost impossible to doable but will always require work.