Lost in thought, why do easy answers elude me?
Last Friday, over a cozy dinner in a restaurant, my friends pondered our next move.
“Hey, that day you went to the Christian Dior light show,” one of my friends asked, “how was it?”
And there I was, tongue-tied, taking a deep breath, and murmuring, “I am not sure, but my roommate watched it three times.”
This is not a tale of a Christmas light show. It’s more about unraveling why people like me, maybe you as well, wrestle with trivial questions like this. Like movie or restaurant reviews. But it does not end there. It becomes quite a pressing issue if it is about choosing a dress for your partner. And let’s not even get started on life-changing decisions like choosing a partner or finding my perfect job. So today, I decided, let’s get to the bottom of it — why am I plagued by decision paralysis? Will I run if I encounter a snake in the road, or will I freeze to death?
Alright, coming back to the Christian Dior-Saks light show. It’s a big deal here in New York, drawing crowds from Thanksgiving Day to New Year’s. To avoid being a hermit during the holidays, I joined my friends to see what the fuss was about. Oh boy! So many people. We even lost one of our own in the crowd, only to track him later via WhatsApp live location.
Two evenings later comes this pressing question, “How was it?”
Is not there a myriad of ways one could respond to such a question, starting from “OMG-that-is-the-best-thing-I-have-ever-seen-in-my-whole-life” to “It-was-shit-I do-not-understand-what-is-wrong-with-people-these-days”? Depending on what you feel. Then why did I default to my roommate’s experience instead of sharing my own? Am I emotionally detached? A genuine concern — provoked as another friend quipped, “He is a sage not much interested in the materials world!”
No, I liked it, I guess.
Then why did I not answer that straight away? Is it because of my lack of confidence in voicing my own opinions?
Wait a minute! It is the same guy opining about every single damn thing under the sun and articulating it — like this one. Indeed, I can affirm my preferences right away when it comes to tangible choices. Give me two options — a horror movie or a documentary — I know which one I prefer. Is the next grocery store far away? Not sure what is far for you. But ask me, how far is it? Roughly one mile. See? I falter when the scale is unknown or when it is a subjective matter.
Again, have you ever wondered why it is worse when the topic is subjective? Nobody has put me in the line of cannon balls to answer for all on the earth. I am here to answer about my own choices. Am I afraid of the judgment that my choice may sound hilarious? Does my taste fit the societal norm? If I like tea, I like tea. Period. Who cares if liking coffee goes better with the flow? I might like both.
Maybe I am an overthinker, making simple things more complex. My mind first ran a marathon: It’s already 9 pm, and the show ends at 10 pm. They’d have to hurry to make it in time. Is the experience worth such a rush, especially with the journey back not ending until midnight? And there’s even a chance of rain tonight. Then, there’s the matter of who’s asking. Did she enjoy that movie I recommended? Is she the adventurous type who relishes outings, or more of an introvert who only ventures out for genuinely exceptional events or, say, in the event of an apocalypse?
I did not explicitly think out all these. I just made up some of them now. But in our subconscious, our mind runs a gigantic calculation machinery in split seconds about every action we take and the words we speak. And the mind of an overthinker piles more of these questions and then goes like, “Oh boy! I do not know how to solve this project. The deadline is in 500 milliseconds”. And it goes to a cognitive overload.
But it is not that obvious, though. Overthinking does not necessarily lead to adverse outcomes when it comes to cognitive ability. You might be an overthinker, freezing with simple questions. Yet, you might be the guy who easily figured out physics problems in college because of your higher analytical skills. If Bob flies at half the speed of light to visit a Christmas party in a distant galaxy and returns to his girlfriend Alice on Earth after fourteen years, will one of them grow white hair? Easy peasy. Relativistic time dilation. Yet the same genius might be unable to process questions like “How was the light show?
Eventually, I turned to Google in search of answers. The internet, you know it, has insights on everything. Indeed, psychologists have figured out a library of theories about topics like this: decision-making processes, social conformity, personality traits, blah blah. The academic world, however, has a knack for complicating things with layers of theories and many ifs and buts. It’s a maze of overthinking itself.
What I gleaned is this: yeah, nothing has straightforward answers. Meh! The problem is that linking some behaviors to some personality traits is not easy. Every personality trait can lead to myriad possibilities. Take overthinking, for example. It can be a tool for intelligent people to think about problems deeply and come up with interesting answers. It prepares someone in advance and often strives for perfectionism. But it also can lead you to a rabbit hole like this.
Overthinkers better understand social norms. It makes them acutely aware of potential judgments. Awareness leads them to anticipate adverse outcomes, turning straightforward decisions into complex dilemmas. Often, they find themselves over-analyzing, like, why do people go to watch light shows anyway?
Lost in introspection, they think: Maybe the girl finds an excuse for another date to impress the boy. Maybe the husband is wary about being scoffed by his wife for not having a plan for a Christmas weekend. Maybe the kids are making too much noise to stay inside the home, so the parents are out. And then there they are, immersing themselves in the bustling crowd. As the light show starts rolling, forgetting to actually experience it, preoccupied with capturing the moments on the iPhone, concerned about fitting the entire scene into the frame and angling their hands high enough to avoid the clutter of other screens around them.
Finally, you return, find things pointless, and feel some sort of emotional detachment. And you forget whether you like it or not. Confused with your own feelings, you opt for a factually correct answer — your roommate watched it three times. Now it is up to the personality traits of the friend who asked the question, whether they will overanalyze it or go like, “OMG, we should go right now!”
So what can we conclude about all these overthinking about overthinking? True, the mind of an overthinker is a maze, often complexifying the simple world. We might not always arrive at definitive answers or feel assured in our decisions, but this introspection is a part of who we are. The same trait might be a boon for us to solve complex problems. It’s about embracing our thought processes, knowing when to rein them in and when to let them roam free, and extracting their full potential.
