Blog Posts

An Overture for the Overthinkers

This post is for the overthinkers.

There is a theory I first heard through the work of Alain de Botton and the School of Life called the Weakness of Strengh Theory. Essentially, the theory suggests that our weaknesses are directly connected with our strengths. When carefully thought about, I believe this actually seems to be the case. In this post, however, I'd like to propose that for overthinking, it could be the case that it is both a weakness and a strength in itself.

For a very long time, my own overthinking was certainly a weakness. It was directed towards the wrong things. I directed my overthinking towards problems that didn't exist, that I had made up in my own head, and this overthinking, as a result, was very often focused inwards. Only when I began to consider the self-destructive nature of this process, did I begin to consider what I could possibly do about it.

Through conscious effort, I realized that if my overthinking could be directed in a more external direction, and aimed to identify real problems that actually existed, it could be used in some kind of a positive way. And if this overthinking aimed in the direction of problem identifying and then problem-solving, then this overthinking and excess energy could very much be used for productive and meaningful means. But more on that later.

What I also did for a long time is I tried to address my overthinking by engaging in distractions that would just help me turn off that overthinking. But what I realized is this. If you use distractions constantly to reduce your overthinking then after you’re done with the distraction, you overthink about all the things you could have done or didn’t get done or experience the consequences of not getting those things done and overthink about that. This could be called the emotional hangover.

So rather, building on what was said before, the overthinking needs to be directed towards an area of passion. The overthinking can be a problem if it is mainly directed inwards. The overthinking towards solutions and mastery can be a massive strength. The overthinker had all this excess energy and an active brain. Use this towards finding solutions and achieving mastery in an area of passion and you’ll feel tired by the end of the day.

I used to have massive sleep problems because I would just spend almost the entire day on distractions. Then I’d try to fall asleep and it would take like 3-4 hours. If you don’t believe me you can ask my employer for my university job who didn’t hire me back because he remembered I kept having to change my morning shifts because I couldn’t sleep the night before.

So the overthinking and excess energy goes towards solutions and mastery in an area of passion. But one might ask about passion if they don’t know what that is.

Well, this is where experience comes into play but experience can mean a lot of things, and generally experience is anything that contributes to a worldview, and worldview is your understanding of everything that is out there in the world. So experience can of course come from actual experiences and this is ideal, such trying out different things, different jobs, different internships, and learn what you’re passionate about there, or what you're not passionate out.

But experiences can also include reading books or absorbing information. But you seek out the information. But some might say that books are long well there are tons of websites with book summaries and here you just read through book summaries.

You could also say social media and internet browsing gives you this opportunity but with internet browsing you don’t really know where to start and with social media and YouTube algorithms the information is recommended to you so unless you’re mindfully browsing you’re at a chance for entering the digital canyon.

This is why bookstores and libraries are so lovely, you don’t have too many books jumping out at you. You have titles with kind of clickbaitish titles but nowhere near the level of the internet and also a book needs to be reviewed by a publishing company and reviewed as being legitimate enough and also be widely accepted as legitimate enough to be in a bookstore.

You have people who might say they don’t like reading, well in that case there are audiobooks, and if those are too long the book summary websites have audio too. So you can get support in finding your passion through reading books but beyond that as well you can easier find your passion by having conversations with people, but not just the close circle of friends, but the other people you meet.

The people you don’t know that much about, you can ask them questions and they might share about an area of passion. Or the teachers to ask them questions. School is a great time to ask these questions and figure this out because it’s essentially your full time job to be curious and ask questions and develop your passion. So you ask questions about why things are the way they are.

And through asking these questions you learn more about different areas and more about the ones you feel most gravitated towards, and especially those where you start to feel a certain responsibility to contributing towards.

But then after high school you have the perfect place to find and develop a passion and this is college because in college you can actually choose your courses and explore different interests and they generally have a massive library which you can spend all day in. So that’s about finding passion.

So then let’s go back to passion. So when the overthinker finds their passion they can contribute their overthinking to finding solutions to problems in their area of passion, and aim for achieving mastery in their area of passion.

And what I mean by mastery is learning everything you can about a subject area, understanding how to do everything in an area of passion, and knowing the answers to all of the questions in the area of passion. And you never actually achieve mastery but you spend your whole life striving for it and you get closer and closer everyday.

And for solutions in your areas of passion, through your overthinking towards this you begin to make contributions and you start to feel you’re making a difference and making the world a somewhat better place to live in. A better place not just for people here now but also for people later on when we’re dead and gone.

And your solutions are sometimes good and sometimes bad but you just spew out your overthinking and come out with an arsenal of solutions and few are bound to be somewhat helpful, but you are okay with those that are not.

You’re also okay with those that others reject. But you’re okay with with that. You’re content with being discontent, because the goal is not to be accepted and have your ideas and solutions accepted, the goal is to strive for mastery and just spend time on your area of passion.

So back to overthinking on problems and using distractions. So overthinking can be a real challenge if the overthinking is directed towards problems only. Particularly internal problems. But let’s talk about this too. Overthinking internally can be more of a hamper than overthinking externally. However, at the same time, you should also be aiming to achieve mastery of yourself.

What I mean by mastery of yourself is you aim to also find solutions to your challenges and areas you need to work on. You improve your time management and organization by using a system such as Google Calendar. You improve your emotional and impulse control by practicing mindfulness and metacognition. You improve your control or stress by practicing coping skills.

And through all of this, you move closer towards mastery of yourself. And mastery in an area of passion is much more attainable once you are closer to mastery of yourself. It is a lifelong process so taking time and small steps is okay.

So overthinking externally is preferable to internally. But most preferable, is the use of overthinking towards solutions and not problems. You begin to overthink solutions. You identify problems, you do not ignore them, but you do not overthink them. You overthink towards finding solutions.

And you find an area of passion, and use yoyr overthinking to identify problems in that area and overthink towards finding solutions there. And you strive towards mastery in that area of passion and as you learn and read and gather information, and gain experiences, you begin to overthink towards more ideas and solutions.

And eventually what this all means is you can leave the world a somewhat better place for people living in it now and later. And you can sleep at night.

The Law of Accumulated Failures

This law states that small failures without response accumulate over time until eventually, a big failure occurs. When this big failure occurs the person is either forced to respond and forced to learn or experiences a breakdown and defeat. So what does this all mean? Learn and grow from each small mistake so they don't accumulate into a big one.

The Importance of Literature for Resilience in Learning Differences

There is a TED Talk by Joseph Lizzi titled "How Literature Can Change Your Life." Something he said in this talk made me stop and think. He said, "I used to think it's what lands you in the dark wood that defines you. But in truth, I came to see; it's what you do to get out of the dark wood that defines you."

Now, while Lizzi was speaking about something more tragic than anything, the sudden death of his wife in a car crash, we can take these words and relate them to many different areas. As we think about resilience in general, we often consider how we respond to failures.

Our mistakes and failures often land us in this dark wood, where everything is unclear, and we cannot see a way out. And we take this place where we find ourselves to define who we are. But as Lizzi states, it is not what lands us in the dark wood, or to take it even a step further, who we feel we are as we stand in this dark wood, that defines us, but what we do to get out, that defines us.

It's your reaction to what has happened that defines you. It is not what has happened that defines you. It is your reaction to what happens. Let's imagine the most basic example possible.

A student has failed a test. The student's failure on the test is not what defines them at this moment. What the student does to get out of this dark wood that they now find themselves in defines them.

There is an incredible book called "Exceeding Expectations", written in 1997 by Henry B. Reiff, Paul Jay Geber, and Rick Ginsberg, where they put together a systematic and scientific model that outlines what successful people with learning disabilities have in common.

One of the parts of this model includes the idea of persistence. Persistence, among many definitions, may be seen as the ability to work one's way out of a difficult situation without giving up.

All of the successful people with learning disabilities in this book had in common: they were very persistent. They worked hard and never gave up. It is not what happened to them that mattered; it's how they reacted. It was not the dark woods that defined them; it was what they did to get out of the dark woods.

We have to make it as clear as possible to our students with learning differences that the failures, and mistakes that lead them into dark woods do not define them. It is what they do to get out of these dark woods. Do you work hard to get out of it? Do you find creative solutions to get out of it? Do you not give up to get out of it? This is what defines you.

Finally, and more directly connected to the title of this post, we see taht literature often presents us with contexts that can be understood and analyzed to where the students feel strong and deep connections ot the stories and characters, and what they are going through.

Dante's Divine Comedy is what Lizzi speaks of in his TED talk. Still, we can think of countless other texts we read in class where the character finds themselves in dark woods but realizes that it is what they do to get out of these dark woods (metaphorically speaking) that defines them.

Joseph Lizzi's TED Talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvkRT0_Un_4&t=304s&ab_channel=TEDxTalks

"Exceeding Expectations" by Henry B. Reiff, Paul Jay Geber, Rick Ginsberg (1997)

https://www.amazon.com/Exceeding-Expectations-Successful-Disabilities-1997-04-24/dp/B01NGZZLIM

Experience and Emotion in Connection to Development

A key theory on emotion, which is put forward mainly throughout Lisa Feldman Barrett's groundbreaking book, "How Emotions Are Made", is about the role of our experiences in the emotions we feel. At the risk of oversimplification, the basic idea is that our experiences give us a stronger ability to make predictions, which affect the emotions we ultimately feel. An example would be a child talking to someone for the first time. A child may not have had any experience of this all, but had seen someone else be scared about doing such a thing, and thus makes a prediction that going to talk to someone for the first time is scary, and therefore feels the emotion of fear. Experience leads to prediction, which leads to the emotion. Conversely, you may have a child who has witnessed another person go up to a person for the first time and enjoy the experience. In turn, a different prediction is made based on this experience, and the emotion of excitement, rather than fear is experienced.

So what does this mean in terms of teaching or possibly parenting? It means that the broader the experiences of a child, which results in a broader worldview, increases the different amount of predictions a child can make, which increases the ranges of possible emotions they may be able to feel.

So how do we create this broader worldview? What role can we play? There are many things that we can do. We can encourage our children to take healthy risks to gain new experiences on which to base new predictions and ultimately increase their worldview and range of emotions.

Another powerful thing we can do is model different scenarios for our children, expanding their worldview and increasing the range of predictions. A famous saying goes somewhat along the lines of, "Children will struggle to listen, but will never fail to imitate." Suppose a child witnesses a teacher or a parent be fearful of something or anxious about a situation. In that case, this is the experience they gain, which is what is added to their worldview, affecting predictions.

Predictions can also be made by teachers' and parents' responses to their children. If a parent or teacher gets mad in response to something the child has done, the prediction is that if I do this action, it will result in this consequence. While this can be powerfully developmental, it can also be powerfully destructive. We have to remember the importance that these predictions play in the construction of emotions.

References:

Barrett, L. F. (2017). How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.