i overthought this post.

i wanted to open with a relatable story from my youth, which would casually transition to a parable (a story with a moral), but that didn’t work because i felt it was too contrived, so then i thought about cleverness, which i don’t have much of, and how its often too lofty to really be clever, so let’s backtrack to basic but basic is boring so then i-.

i stopped.

i caught myself.

“oh, tine,” i said, “you’re doing it again.” so i took a deep breath and restarted, able to admit, “i overthought this post.”

of the hobbies i pursue, overthinking comes most naturally to me, more naturally than singing and i used to use a hairbrush as a microphone so-.

so being a qualified overthinker (some might say overqualified), i have found 2 phrases that ease excessive overthinking. so, when overthinking says, “this happened before this many times, so that means its consequence and/or meaning will always follow,” we should respond with,

* you can’t read minds.

* you can’t predict the future.

because these 2 phrases are truer than whatever over-thoughts we entertain.

for myself, you see, what makes me a qualified* overthinker is that i am accurate and yet accuracy does not lend itself to omniscience. i may be able to read body language like a composer sight-reading a new song. i may be able to listen for changes in intonation like a meterologist documenting data from a barometer, but i am still not the other person. they can still surprise me. and as for circumstances, well, life is not like a book or a movie. and if it is, it's a bad one! life is full of disappointing endings and clichéd climaxes. there are no perfect foils and man, life is better as a side character than a main character, isn’t it? much less drama!

none of this is to say that our intuition or common sense should be ignored, but only that we should allow ourselves to be wrong. we want for there to be a steady rhythm of action, consequence, action, consequence, but much like seeking immortality, being wrong is as inevitable as dying and only by avoiding it does it come on stronger and perhaps sooner.

allowing yourself to be wrong is not “accepting bad vibes” and it’s certainly not “manifesting bad vibes” either. allowing yourself to be wrong relieves pressure. it makes room for the uncontrollable, unforeseeable. it makes you more gracious in the face of other people’s mistakes, too, because damnit, we all fumble. we could all use less pressure and lots more grace.

oh. i ended up with a moral anyway ^^

*i was trained as an empath by being raised as the eldest daughter in an immigrant household.

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