Overthinking kills your happiness

Everybody overthinks many situations in their mind and creates fake scenarios. When we overthink, we turn our thoughts a thousand times without concluding. What's more, sometimes we end up with ideas that contradict each other. We go, for example, from being excited about a date to questioning ourselves for hours and going over every detail of the meeting because we did something wrong, but it's not true; it’s a fake scenario that we create. For me, it’s too easy to overthink about all the things that I do, and I always hate overthinking about my life. In this essay, first, I will explain how overthinking affects our happiness; second, I will tell you how overthinking has affected my life; and finally, I will tell you how overthinking kills your dreams.

When you overthink a lot of situations that pass through your life, that you impact your happiness. When I hang out with my friends and feel content at that moment, I analyze the situation and think, “Is it true that I’m happy? Could it be that they wanted me to come? Could it be that I am bothering them?” Or, when I achieve a goal, I think, “Could it be that I deserve it? And if I hadn't made it? Did I really try?” Etc. When a person overthinks every situation that happens in his life, that person isn’t enjoying his life, since he analyzes every detail or situation that occurs in it.

Since I was a teenager, I remember overthinking about everything that happened to me, which affected me more when I had to make decisions. From there began an adventure of what would have happened if I had done that. I analyzed every decision that I took and what others think of me; the results were that I was suffering from anxiety, having low self-esteem, and creating scenarios that would not happen. For example, when I wear clothes that are out of my comfort zone and I start to imagine phrases like someone says I would like to have their self-esteem, or when someone looks at me, if they stare at me, etc., and that is just an example of how overthinking has impacted me in my daily life since I was younger.

When I was going to enter the university, I had to choose which career to follow, and my options were psychology, sworn translator, and social work. But the one I wanted to study the most was psychology. One day I visited my aunt, who always criticizes everything I do. Her daughter was also going to enter university, and chatting with my cousin, she told us that she was going to study psychology. Upon hearing that it was like a bucket of cold water, I began to analyze all the situations that could happen. If we were in the same section, and he got good grades and not me, my aunt would tell me that her daughter is better than me. At family gatherings they would compare us, and in that form, I was creating false scenarios from thinking about it so much. I didn’t decide the career that I wanted, and that’s why I assure you that by overthinking, you kill your goals or dreams.

To conclude this essay, I could only say that a person who overthinks every event that happens in his life does not enjoy it; instead, he suffers from every detail that happens in it. The only option he has to improve his life is to seek help from this and little by little change the suffering that torments him.