How Overthinking Is A Disease (and how to cure it)
“To think too much is a disease.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky
Thinking is one of the most interesting abilities and double-edged swords we have as humans. It has created some of the greatest technological advancements in history that built the world we live in today, but it also is the reason for our seemingly inevitable psychological and emotional suffering.
How do we manage something that seems to hold the power to create and destroy our world?
The problem isn’t our minds but how we are using it.
Our mind is a tool, just like a hammer. A hammer can be used to build beautiful structures in the physical world to enhance our lives, or it can be used as a weapon to destroy.
The tool itself is neutral, but its result depends on how we end up using it.
The mind was created to help us solve physical or survival problems, but it is not designed to solve our emotional and spiritual problems. If we need to find food, shelter, water, or any basic necessity or even want to discover ways to improve our lives physically, the mind is an amazing tool for that.
It falls short when we task it to solve our higher-level needs, such as love, fulfillment, and joy.
These higher-level needs do not follow logic or rationality. We didn’t fall in love with our partners or choose our friends because we created a pros and cons list of having them in our lives.
But if we try to use our minds for these “spiritual” needs, we fall into a vicious cycle of overthinking and never end up finding a solution.
The very tool we are using to try to solve our problems is what’s creating it in the first place.
It is like trying to use a hammer to paint, and we wonder why we can’t create a masterpiece. The hammer isn’t the problem. It’s just the wrong tool for the job.
Peace, love, fulfillment, and joy are our natural default states. It’s only when we overthink (using our minds in an unnatural way) that we eject ourselves out of this default state.
To help demonstrate this point, what emotion do you feel when you’re not thinking?
Therein lies the key to our peace. We are automatically peaceful when we aren’t thinking.
Peace is not found within our minds. It is found when we have freedom from it.
It is as simple as noticing when you are caught up in thinking, taking a few deep breaths, and reminding yourself that thinking is causing suffering until it passes.
Just as no cloud in the sky stays there forever, no thought stays in our minds forever.
You already have the peace, love, and joy you seek that can be experienced in the present when you let go of your thinking.
With All My Love,
Joseph
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