I think too much.
In certain situations it’s a strength, like the game-theory work that I feel helped me maneuver corporate politics (when I was still a corporation man), or in a leadership role when having to deliver a tough message to someone, or even in conversations with our children about important or weighty subjects. My tendency to plan and think has helped me dodge pre-considered pitfalls in many a potentially-thorny conversation, and I’m thankful for that.
In certain situations, though, it can be a real deficit for me. Particularly when the amount of neurons I’ve burned on a seemingly small matter heavily outweighs the amount of thought whomever I’m engaging has invested. In these instances there is an imbalance, and my habitual overthinking can project an air of obsession – the level of thought I’ve afforded something swelling it’s perceived importance far beyond the actual, at least to the outside participant.
For instance: When a heretofore un-broached subject arises in conversation between us, there is every chance that, for me, I may have already thought about it for hours at some point in the past. For certain subjects, this is more than just “it crossed my mind” level thought, it’s sometimes full-on overblown analyses, perhaps even including imagined conversations where I examine a mental fishbone of all possible directions the discourse may go and have some notion of my responses to each.
Good, perhaps, for debate prep… but in real-human conversation I think can be frustrating. I imagine it would read as forceful… or me being on the offensive with no apparent rationale.
I remember being critical of my mother for shades of this same exact over-thinking. I don’t want to be doomed to inherit that. I am working on it.
Peace.
Also written on this day...
- two evenings - 2011
- nomads & their garlic-hands - 2010
- sorry guys... i ain't got it - 2009
- last day at the sawmill - 2007
- mostly politics - 2006
- ascending, part 2 - 2004