‘Overthinking’ – please can we ditch that word

Underthinking is a much bigger problem

I don’t think I’d ever heard the word ‘overthinking’ until just a few years ago. Why did we need a new word when there were plenty of existing words in the English language to describe what I believe people were trying to say? Words such as stressing, agonising over, worrying, fretting – not to mention screaming, shouting, running around in circles and tearing our hair out.

Such behaviour used to be described as neurotic or hysterical, but these words have dropped out of usage, presumably to avoid accusations of misogyny. (I’m referring back to a time, not that long distant, when women were considered inherently inferior to the male sex and therefore constitutionally incapable of applying reason.)

Thinking is such a beautiful word for such a beautiful concept. Why have we despoiled it? Wasn’t Apollo the golden god of enlightenment and civilisation? (I know there was also the ancient Greek goddess Athene, known to the Romans as Minerva, who did rather trump him as goddess of wisdom.)

We are averse to thinking, though, aren’t we? As Aldous Huxley said, we’ll sometimes do almost anything to avoid thinking. It starts at school perhaps, being given quadratic equations to solve for homework and sitting there racking our brains for…