If You were not You, would You like to be with You?
Very recently, I had the chance to interact with some digital marketing trainees.
During this interaction, someone asked, “When does deep thinking become overthinking, are they the same?”.
It was a good question, certainly.
I had a short answer to it:
When you begin to think about something beyond the preconceived notions, beliefs and popular opinion surrounding it, and you begin to move your questioning towards its very essence, you know you’re thinking deeply.
Thinking deep is a gift.
Overthinking is when you keep at it, without taking any action on it, or with it, essentially becoming indecisive.
But I chose to deliver an explanation at length, instead.
Here’s what I said:
Human mind is powerful, and the ability to think is its powerful tool.
The ability to think to an extent that we can, separates us from ALL the other species in the world.
While an individual mind is bound to greatly benefit from collective thinking, individual thinking has its own place.
Collective thinking serves as a boon when it comes to brainstorming, ideation, solving problems, executing complex strategies, and achieving seemingly impossible goals.
But it falls short, incredibly, when it comes to diving deep into any subject.
Sure, learning the perspectives of other subject matter experts is immensely beneficial, for everyone collectively gets to view the same subject/problem/challenge from multiple angles.
It then helps devise a better, and perhaps more suitable strategy, to overcome those challenges.
But, collective thinking prevents deep questioning, simply because the presence of a crowd is extremely hypnotic for its members. The ability of each individual in critiquing the idea is well below what it would possibly be, when dealt with, by any member, in solitude.
Add to it the element of being overly self-conscious in a group setting, fearful of being judged, or sounding stupid, and the possibility of thinking out loud goes further down.
I do not stand against collective thinking.
I’m simply highlighting its short-comings.
This is a gap which deep-thinking fills, effectively.
Spending time in solitude to dive deeper into a subject, constantly questioning things down to the very essence are somethings a layman never does.
This is the reason, perhaps, why those who do it, are touted as thinkers, and subject matter experts with their ability to lend an unheard-of perspective on a seemingly trivial subject.
And it goes without saying that most of these perspectives are formed not during the public discourse, except for the occasional, spur-of-the-moment ideas, rather during the times of solitude, prior to the event.
Let me give you a quick simple explanation of this:
Let’s say you tell me that you want to become a fitness influencer.
I would ask, “Okay, but why?”
You might say, “Because I love the industry.”
I would ask “why?”, again.
You might say, “Because I enjoy doing workouts, or living healthy and fit”.
Most people stop right there, at the level of the activity, with zero introspection into the essence of the action being taken.
This is the deepest level of thought 99% of the population ever gets to.
But treasures always lie in the far-reaching depths.
If you continue to question the thoughts at this stage, you might discover a world of thoughts and emotions never thought of, before.
If you ask yourself now, “Why do I love doing it?”
You might find that you like the feeling of a small accomplishment, or maybe you like the sense of long term hope that it brings to you, after putting in the little quota of regular effort towards your goal.
If you continue asking “Why?”, from this point on, you discover some hidden truths about yourself and your desires.
You might find that there is something in the past that is still haunting you.
Or, you might find that there is something in the future that you long for, in order to fulfill a promise you made to yourself, or someone very close to you.
Or, you might find that there is a risk in the future that you are trying to avert by improving the things in the present.
Most often there is more than one reason.
This is the stage where you begin to understand yourself.
When I was ten, my uncle used to tell me, “Be your own friend.”, everyday.
I never took it seriously, back then.
It was only during my college days, when I was forced to seclude myself from everyone around me, for the part, that I began to understand my thought-process, and its patterns.
I began to take note of things that occurred, and how I reacted to them.
I took special note of what I spoke, and what I meant.
Often, I would find that whatever I spoke of, was an abstract of what I meant, really.
I embraced solitude.
I started to become my friend.
Sadly, most people aren’t their own friends.
Solitude is scary to a lot of people.
To them I ask: “If you do not like your own company, how do you expect others to?”
Think of it.
Solitude is a wonderful place to be in.
It is like a little gap between words.
Like silence between sentences.
Like a pause between moments of intensity.
It lends value which we often fail to pay attention to.
Solitude allows you to think freely.
It is essential to understanding others, understanding oneself, and making sense of everything.
You need to understand yourself before anything else.
Only when you understand yourself, can you begin to understand the people around you.
When you understand them, you understand the world you live in.
You might consider yourself to be very different from everybody else.
But you’re incredibly similar to almost anyone around you, especially those you have grown up with.
You’ve grown up living with the collective mind of a group or society, which you cannot expect to escape. Your mind cannot be completely immune to the collective mind of the community, or society you live in.
When you do everything, as above, you begin to see the similarities you share with almost anybody else, especially, emotions, and behaviour.
Being your friend is a benefit only solitude can facilitate.
It is of supreme importance, and thinking deep is the only way to do that.
With all that said, thinking deep has its flaws, and short-comings.
Thinking deep in solitude has serious limitations in the extent to which it can solve problems, or the ideas it can generate.
Most wonderful ideas are derivatives of someone else’s ideas.
The concept Idea Sex by James Altucher is effective in helping one generate new ideas, and it only happens when you draw inspiration from others’ ideas.
When we think in silo we face the additional risk of re-affirming our own beliefs and ideas, without having bounced it against someone else, and let it be critiqued.
This can have serious consequences, when continued for a long time.
Solitude becomes seclusion, very quickly, if left unchecked.
And things like depression, anxiety, and their likes are often found getting aggravated when someone gets into seclusion.
Thinking in solitude also prevents us from validating or seeing the effectiveness of any good ideas we have.
Unless we put the ideas to the test, on the floor, we cannot really find out the actual strengths and weaknesses of the idea.
Not doing so, in turn, causes us to doubt, and not be satisfied with the idea, soon after it originated, and we might get to re-modelling it, or redesigning it, repeatedly, in pursuit of perfection.
Essentially, becoming indecisive.
This is the result of ‘overthinking’, and it is what an ‘overthought’ looks like.
An overthought is when the doubts and perceived challenges surrounding the idea, outweigh the possible benefits of putting the idea to action, in one’s mind.
Deep thought becomes an over thought the moment it stops you from taking the initial set of actions.
Thinking deep without overthinking is possible, but it is a slippery slope.
It is incredibly easy to fall into the zone of overthinking, before the realization hits you.
Yet, with careful observation and introspection, one can master it.
After all, it is all about being your own friend.
So I ask, again, “If You were not You, would You like to be with You?”
