Overthinking

Boomer is not a complex dog.  He kills me.  You can walk out the front door to check the mail.  He will follow you to the door and wag his tail.  It takes all of 2 minutes to walk out and get the mail.  When you walk back in the front door, he greets you like you have been away for days.  It is one of those genuine enthusiastic greetings.  He will jump up and down, make noise, and pretty much demand that you pet him.  He just does not stop until you do.

Boomer does not overthink anything.  He just knows that it is great to see you walk back in the door and he does not hesitate for a minute to let you know how happy he is to see you.

You for the most part are spending a lot of time outside of your comfort zone.  When a lot of stuff is coming at you and there is a reasonable amount of stress involved, you are prone to overthinking things. 

You overthink things when you have some decision or task in front of you.  Typically you are really stressed out about it and you think you do not have control over what is going to happen.  You don't really distinguish between what is an actual lack of control and what is a perceived lack of control.  In your head they are both the same thing. 

When you do not have control of something, taking an action gives you control.  Inactivity gives the situation or task control of you.

It is pretty easy to spend much more time thinking about something instead of doing something .  Overthinking requires you to stop what you are doing to think things through.  Overthinking means you are standing still, progress comes to a halt.  The cure to overthinking is to do something.  Even if it is not the exact right thing, it puts you on a path to discover what is the right thing to do. 

True story here.  I see a guy in a wheel chair drop his bag of groceries and I walk over to help him.  It is not about anything but dropped groceries.  It is not about his wheelchair, or me.   This guy really appreciated the help.  I did the same thing a couple of weeks later when I see a guy on crutches drop his newspaper.  I go to pick up the paper and the guy barks at me.  I told him not to be a dick.  I did not overthink things in either case. 

So be careful.  The real danger in overthinking anything is that if you do it long enough, you will be unnaturally afraid and tentative.  The monster in your closet gets bigger every minute you do not open the closet door.  Never hesitate to open the closet door.

Love Dad