15 August 2021 – I am an overthinker. I always have been. Almost every decision I make and everything I say and do is planned. Once in a while, if I let my emotions get the better of me, I will speak or act without overplanning. However, when that happens, I am usually very unhappy with the outcome. So instead, I overthink every situation. I am not sure why I am this way, but I have been for as long as I can remember. In some ways, it is better to be an overthinker than someone who doesn’t think at all before I act.

Before I say or text anything, I have usually come up with hundreds of different scenarios of the response. I plan when and where, and how I should say or do anything. If someone says something to me, I immediately overthink it. If someone speaks to me with ambiguity or an open-ended answer, I immediately go into hyper-analytic mode. I now must figure out what you meant by what you said or did. If you don’t spell it out in black and white, I will overthink it until it means something that might be totally different than what they meant.

I can’t be the only person who does this. As I have paid more attention to this habit and tried to understand why I am this way, I have discovered the obvious. I have always cared more about how my words affect other people than what I really want to say. I’m starting to do and say the things I want, but it is difficult, and I sometimes get drawn back into my pattern of overthinking. Even as I type this, I wonder if I should be more careful about describing my thoughts. Every time I start writing a blog post, I wonder if it is even something I should say. Fortunately, I am becoming more aware of my overthinking.

One good thing that comes out of overthinking is that I am a pretty good judge of character because I overthink a person’s intentions until I am sure they are sincere. I am also very careful about who I choose to be close to and who I care about. I have gone through so many scenarios about what the person wants from me and how they will hurt me and how they will treat me. So, by the time I decide you are worth my time, I know you are.

Trust the overthinker. If I say I care, I do. If I am in, I am all in.