Category Archives: The Ones Where I Try To Give Advice

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A Blog Post In Which I Over-think My Tendency To Over-think

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I think far too much. Ask anyone who even knows the first thing about me, and they will all say the same thing. Thinking too much isn’t always a bad thing. I think it might be connected to my need to listen to jazz music while I study and my love for reading and my general ability to sometimes make good decisions. And all of those things are good.

But sometimes, it is a very bad thing. There are several reasons for this.

1) Thinking too much paralyzes. It keeps you from actually doing anything. Sometimes I get so caught up in the theoretical components of an activity, that I never actually do the activity. I am guilty of this in responsibilities as small as reading e-mails. I think about how great it would be if I set a little time apart each day to answer all my e-mails. And while I am thinking about this, my inbox piles up and my time disappears. But if I answered e-mails as they came in, I would have plenty of time for them.

2) Thinking too much leads to bad thoughts. When you think too much, it is impossible to think good thoughts all the time. Invariably, then, less than good thoughts creep their way into your mind. Often, I find myself thinking about how I am going to fail at something. And even more often than that, I find myself thinking about how I compare to other people. Spending time comparing myself to others is probably the biggest time-suck I engage in. It makes no sense. As I am thinking about how I measure up to other people, they are getting even farther ahead. Some people might argue that I shouldn’t think about it like that, but I do. And it is helpful to think that if I just did the work, I would stand a much better chance of measuring up. You can’t do anything standing still.

3) Thinking too much causes a decrease in self-confidence. If I listened to my head all the time, I would really hate myself. My apartment is rarely clean, my inbox rarely empty, my work rarely done, my dreams rarely achieved, and my relationships rarely deep. But what my head doesn’t tell me is that all of those things are within my ability to change. I just need to stop thinking and get up and do them.

What are you thinking about? How much you hate these questions? Leave a comment anyway. I would love to hear from you!

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The Interesting Business of College

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Being a college student is interesting business. On the one hand, we are told repeatedly that this is the time when we get to start living – we have the freedom and the ability to really do what we want. On the other hand, there is an understood rule that we will be responsible, get our degrees, go on to occupy “meaningful” jobs and be productive members of society.

The great absurdity of life, as my friend once said, is that we don’t spend every second of every day doing something we love. Because, he argued, who, if not ourselves, are we trying to make happy? And if there is anytime at all to be happy, isn’t it during our life?

These are important questions to think about. The problem is that happiness is such a hard concept to pin down. Is someone who plays video games all day because that’s what she wants to do really happier than someone who goes to class because she has a responsibility to do so? I don’t think so.

Yes, we should be chasing things we are passionate about all day erryday, but we also shouldn’t let immediate gratification blind us to the fact that some of the things we want we are going to have to wait for.

What do you wish you were doing?

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Creating Crises

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If there’s something that I know about people it’s that they really like crises. No one will ever admit that. I won’t even admit it. I “hate” crises. I “avoid” them at all costs. Why then do we make up crises when none really exist? We create mountains out of molehills on the reg. Everyone cries over spilled milk. And other reversals of popular cliches.

I was talking about life with a professor of mine the other day. She was telling me that when you get right down to it life is just a long series of lists of problems. When you run out of problems and you run out of lists, you die. I know that it all seems really morbid. But I had the pleasure of being told this by the sweetest tiniest black-haired Medievalist I know. And so that helped me out a little bit. You can imagine me as a sweet tiny black-haired Medievalist if that helps.

I think there is an intense truth to this idea. Somehow, human beings are created to create problems. I think that’s why the whole “I’m just a collection of cells” thing doesn’t sit right with me. If I’m just a collection of cells, then why do I care about my English midterm due on Monday?

It’s because that’s what life is. It’s about finding problems, creating problems. And then solving them. It’s a bit like the pre-schooler who builds a whole city of buildings out of blocks just to knock it down and start all over again. We construct these huge, big crises just so that we can solve them or end them badly, and then we do it again.

If crises are our creation (which they are), then we should embrace them. We should be excited when something goes wrong. It means we have another thing to solve, another reason to stay alive, another reason to try harder tomorrow.

What’s your crisis?