Life
6 Things You're Completely Overthinking
Long-live the perpetual over-thinker. You're guilty, I'm guilty — everybody in the damn world is an over-thinker, and this is because we've turned to focus so heavily on making sense of our lives that we forget what it means to actually, you know, live them. The truth is that there are so many situations that would be made so much easier if we could just accept the simple truth about them, but we refuse to do that because the simple truth is, well, usually the hardest.
It's easier to exaggerate and come up with alternatives that keep us from the very plain truth of a situation. It's easier to convince ourselves of all the maybes and possibilities that make accepting the truth a little easier. Because it's not pleasant to swallow the fact that someone woke up one day and realized that no, they didn't really love us anymore. It's not pleasant to accept the fact that we may not know where we're headed in life and maybe that uncertainty is what we really have to be comfortable with. It's not pleasant to accept that the things that were done to us are not our fault and yet they are still our problem to deal with. Here, all the things in life you're completely overthinking ... because things truly are much simpler than they often seem:
Your Five And Ten Year Plan
You should have an idea of where you'd like your life to go. You should have a general sense of what you desire and where you'd like to be (in a home, regardless of where, with a partner, regardless of who) but the little details, other than the ones immediately within your control? Let those go. You don't need to know how your life should unfold for it to be able to. You just have to try and see where it takes you.
Whether Or Not Someone Wants To Be With You
If they do, they will be. They will make it known. This is not a secret riddle to unlock or some kind of hidden truth you have to uncover. If they want to be with you, they will be with you, if they don't want to be with you, they'll be vague or passive or mildly disinterested — because that's usually a little better than being overt, which many people perceive as being rude or unkind.
Why Someone Who Claimed To Love You Broke Up With You Seemingly Out Of Nowhere
That person did not really love you. Or, they loved you for a time and now they do not anymore. When it comes to these things, you have to take them at face-value. Someone loves you if they are actively loving you. Lots of people can hold you fondly in their hearts, lots of people can claim to "love you," but it's the people who are doing the actual work of loving that really matter. They're the ones worth your time. Everything else is just holding onto an idea so as not to have to accept the reality.
Whether Or Not Someone Is "The One"
They're the one if you're with them and you're committing to one another. If you aren't, they're not, or you have no place trying to "figure that out" yet. In fact, if you get to the point of having to "figure it out," that more leans toward it not being "right" than the alternative.
The Ways You're Not "Normal"
There's no such thing as normal. We're all weirdos. We all have weird and uncomfortable thoughts and we all hate ourselves and we all think nasty things and do gross things and have weird embarrassing dreams and feel like we don't fit in. Chant it with me now: We are all weirdos. There's nothing wrong with you. Normal is an idea that keeps you from enjoying your life. Let it go. It's not helping.
What Other People Are Thinking Of You
... Because they're not thinking of you. Not as much as they're thinking of themselves. And "what people think of you" is usually "what the faceless, nameless group of people in my head" thinks about you. Aka, what you think about you. Another really important thing to remember when you're struggling with this is the fact that nobody has just one set opinion on anything or anyone. Nobody is having any one thought about you that defines you in any real way. In fact, they're having very few thoughts about you altogether: they're mostly worrying about what other people think of them... just like you are worrying what they think of you.
