overthinking
I have noticed an annoying tendency in myself sometimes to overthink things.
I’m not sure if I overthink them, I sometimes can’t accept good things happening, I’m just anal, or sometimes I’m just pessimistic. Take last night for example. I took my girlfriend out for supper and some pool, and dropped her off at her house. While I was on my way home, she called me on my cell and asked me to come back. Rather than just accepting the invitation, I asked a couple of questions on other related matters, so she said forget it and that was that. I spent a lot of yesterday being irritated with other people, and finished the night irritated with myself.
I have noticed within myself the tendency at times to find the cloud in every silver lining. Sometimes that’s necessary in my line of work, to make sure you know what the pitfalls are so you cna avoid them; sometimes it just gets in the way. And I have also noticed a tendency to get hung up in the details of things, although I’m not as bad as I used to be. If I were a Catholic, I think I would make a pretty good Devil’s Advocate.
In any case, I’ve decided that I’m tired of overthinking and overanalyzing things that happen. I’m re-reading Robert Fritz’s Your Life As Art, in which the author talks about making changes that are permanent, rather than making a change and doing well, only to have the change not last, or worse, overcompensate in the other direction, a condition he calls oscillation. I won’t talk about the whole book, but if you’ve ever wanted to make a change and tried and failed, I would recommend this book. It’s not a quick fix book, but it’s not overly complex. You just have to be willing to do the work, whatever that may be for your specific situation.
So, hope is not lost for me, I’m just finding out where my thinking is deficient, so I can change it and the outcome of my actions accordingly.