Snapping Back To Reality
Have you ever walked down an aisle and immediately noticed a random person that, for some strange reason, caught your attention? Do you remember walking down the rest of the aisle? Have you ever wondered what this person must be thinking about? Ever wondered if this person was thinking about you? We have all been there, bravely convincing ourselves that we don’t give a damn what other people think about us. We all can willingly say it, but what if you were standing in front of someone whose opinion actually mattered to you? How do you act without considering what the other person is thinking? We are all strangely attracted to the crazy ones that did amazing things whilst unrestrained by the perspectives of others and who fought valiantly as they were indefatigable in their pursuit to achieve their endeavors. The ‘I don’t give a damn’ attitude is quite admirable. I mean, why wouldn’t it catch your attention? Have you ever wondered how they just don’t give a damn and achieve greatness? Well, I have been asked this question quite a few times(mostly by myself) and now I finally understand much more about this ‘I don’t give a damn’ attitude and would love to share my learnings. Enjoy this piece of art, kind reader!)
I cannot be the only one who has been there. Caring when I should not be caring. Wasting time focusing on thoughts that don’t matter. Exhausting my mind with thoughts that do nothing but answer questions never asked. This life with all of its constructs, leaving me to believe that overthinking was a normal part of it and that everyone does and will continue to overthink. Well, what about those unique people that suddenly catch your attention in an inexplicable way? The ones that mysteriously seem like they have control over every thought that they could possibly have. Are they some superior breed of human? What if this was a latent power in us all? From experiencing overthinking and no thinking at all, I have come to realize that it has nothing to do with unwillingly being captured in some mental vortex with no way out. It has a little something to do with choosing whether to commit your mental stamina to some thought. Allow me, if you would, this privilege of explaining what I mean.
When we all want to learn something new, we have to commit ourselves to learn more about the subject, right? I mean it doesn’t come by just briefly scanning over some material related to the subject. It comes with constantly training our minds to think about a specific thing, and exposing or committing your mental stamina to this subject. Basically to learn something we repeatedly expose our minds to the subject so that we become more and more familiar with it. Now the same concept can be used with anything that you commit your mind to. Our minds can figure out anything if we choose to allow it to, but most of us have become greedy with our creative minds thereby forcing our reason to take a vow of silence. Think about when you use your creativity to conjure up unique ways to approach any problem, how satisfied do you feel when you come up with a solution? If creativity is an art to inspire the creation of something unique then can it only be used to solve problems? Think about what would happen if you commit your mental stamina to unnecessary thoughts. Your mind is focusing so much on a specific thought that it tries to figure out answers to questions that have never been asked. Why did that person insult me? Do they know that I have some problem? Why couldn’t they just ask me what was wrong? Why can’t I stop thinking about this? Here is a little example that may help further explain what I mean:
If you had to spend months learning French, your mind won’t just forget everything that it has learned overnight, right? You may randomly speak to your family in French, or say something to someone in French so that they don’t know what you are saying. However, if you never thought about it for years, what would happen? Over time, if not committed to, the knowledge may fade away, the same things happen with your thoughts…
For me, this was something that I would find myself facing at random times in my life. When I was a kid I really admired the people who worked so hard and were not restricted by other people’s perspectives. I would think that they had some superpower which allowed them to not give a damn about any unnecessary thoughts. Initially, I did try to implement this in my life, but something always kept telling me that I had to dig deeper into this feeling. I had to understand what it means to me. I got so far that I would be so focused on doing what I needed to do until someone that I admired came along and I was no longer present. My mind was distracted and just coming up with so many thoughts that my body was doing work that I did not realize I was doing. My mind would just wander and wonder what this person is thinking about me. Whether they were impressed by how I did what I did or maybe I just was not good enough. I was committing so much of my mental stamina to unnecessary thoughts. Can you imagine how draining it must be to have all of these thoughts playing around in your mind? I was no longer part of reality. I was living in a world that did not exist, a hypothetical world. Whenever I did come back to my senses, I had no idea how the heck I got to where I was. I did not remember doing what I did because my mind was otherwise occupied. I really did not enjoy this feeling. It was as if I was not in control of myself. When I would self-reflect, I would want to beat this feeling. I no longer wanted to be dominated by such thoughts nor did I want to be a slave to my mind that lived in a hypothetical world. I was determined to learn, but no matter what happened, I would still fall victim to this…
“I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am “ — Cooley
Everything started to change once I joined a public gym. In the beginning, I would be focusing on my training routine but at random times I still would wonder whether people were watching me or whether they thought that I didn’t know what I was doing(this was coming from a man that had been training for years before joining a public gym). I would scrutinize everything that I did. I was judging everything that I did from what I thought other people were thinking of me…In a gym, the reason as to why most people are looking in your direction may be because they are curious about what you do or they just want to use a specific piece of equipment after you. This was sort of a reality check for me because focusing my mental stamina on unnecessary thoughts led to me forgetting what I did and didn’t do. I couldn’t take this anymore, because something unnecessary was getting in the way of my discipline. My solution to this was that every time I was about to pursue the creation of hypothetical situations, I started to remind myself that I was hurting myself and wasting my mental stamina on stuff that is not relevant to my life. So I basically stopped committing my mental stamina to unnecessary thoughts. The thoughts would pop up occasionally, but I would let them go before I started to drown in the void. Honestly, what a person thinks is entirely up to them. People are going to look at you, they may think things (good or bad), but until you interact with them, there is no way to know what they are thinking. Even if you do find out what they are thinking, most of the time their thoughts are a projection of themselves onto you. Don’t think that you are the only one who overthinks, we are all human beings after all…
You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. — Marcus Aurelius
My point is that it never comes to a point where you should not care at all. This is a somewhat negative solution to this problem. You see, the way the mind works is that we only care when we willingly overthink these thoughts to such an extent that we don’t realize how far down we have fallen. We all have the power to invest our mental stamina in anything. We can invest it in changing the world or watching paint dry, but it is our responsibility to choose where to invest our thoughts. If someone had to come up to you right now and compliment or insult you, the only time it affects you is if you allow yourself to pursue overthinking this. Sometimes we get so deep in our thoughts that we lose touch of what is real and what is not because we allow our creative minds to conjure up hypothetical situations that may never exist, and we choose to live in ones that make no sense. You see we all want answers without asking anyone questions, but we choose to never look deeper than the superficial meaning of things. We never look inside ourselves for the answers and that is why we only ever come up with superficial hypothetical situations that do nothing other than drain our souls. It is never a crime to overthink, it happens to all of us on some point. However to pursue ignorance is a choice and we always have a choice, always…
Make the decisions today that can bring you the peace that you need to change the lives around you. If you commit to growing yourself and investing in your existence, then you essentially are changing the world, because whether you realize it or not, you are a part of this world…
