
How To Combat Overthinking With Writing
In February of 2018, the absolute legend of a comedian Joey Coco Diaz uploaded the 556th installment of his podcast The Church Of What´s Happening Now. Usually, the topics of Lee´s and Joey´s conversations are varying a lot which really keeps the podcast rich in variety and always gives you a good laugh on the way to work or university. This one however, was a different one.
What is so fantastic about Uncle Joey is that he knows exactly what to say and when to say it. He is an absolute legend of a storyteller and if I get even half close to being as good of a one as he is, I´m a lucky guy. He always has an advice or an anecdote ready for every situation. Diaz has had a tough life riddled with ups and downs and it is more than a nail-biter to listen to him tell some of his stories. If you want the full immersion, check out the podcast yourself. In the case of this episode however, it is not a crazy fucked up mafia story which brings me to write this article, more than that it is the story of why I actually am writing articles at all. His advices are treasures, and today, I would like to share one with you.
Guilt
Guilt. Guilt is the most painful companion of every tragedy you´ll every encounter. Be it a break-up, an accident or even death. Guilt will not only hold your hand but pull you down to the floor and smash your face on it as soon as you start getting back up. It is the anchor which keeps your ideas and happiness on zero-levels and it is the heat which will make the wax which holds your wings together, melt. Guilt is an ugly companion. But as with the darkness , guilt as well possesses a right to be wandering with you as you walk down the path of life. Think of guilt as a screaming child. It always wants your attention but when it gets it for some time, it is still not going to appreciate it. Guilt is an ugly yet useful companion. So what do you when the kid keeps screaming and pushing you back and keeps you from moving?
“The fucking thinking”
By the time, the podcast was taking place, Lee Syatt had just broken up with a long term relationship and felt accordingly sad and depressed. Though he, to his great credit, does not show directly during the show, the conversation eventually turned to this crucial topic. And Joey, like a loving father, emits a warm, tough love towards Lee which really changed my mind about how to think about love, youth and time itself. When Lee tells him more about all his thoughts and concerns and how he overthinks every single situation about himself and the whole dynamics of his past relationship and how he never stops thinking, Joey asks him:”Do you think my brain is different, do you think my brain ever stops? No, not it never stops. It´s either guilt or regret or the things I should or should not have done or whatever.” The 55 year old comedian has the exact same problems as young Lee, and I realized that he had the same problems as I did, and probably as every other human being ever does. But on Joey´s scale I had never experienced anything, which is why his character and his infinite kindness is even more impressing to me. I do not want to go into detail, but Joey´s story is one unique string of incredible setbacks and challenges where some of us, myself included, probably would already have given up. But he did not. He fought, and is now on top of the world.
Throughout the podcast episode, Joey comes up with an advice so simple yet so powerful that I cannot help but passing it on:
“Knock it off with the fucking thinking.”
It sounds like a platitude, it may very well be one. But in this case, the Ethos is on point. Hearing those words from anyone else than Joey would not nearly be as powerful. But seeing it come out of the mouth of a guy who has experienced the life like Joey did, it has an impact and raison d’être of a punch to the face. He is right, in every sense, Joey is correct to tell us this. In our world, we tend to overthink and over-complicate everything we encounter, even the good things. Coco gives the example of a young relationship and says that the overthinking will only destroy the young love which is blossoming in both of the lovers´ hearts. It will corrupt the light and turn into darkness. There is nothing wrong with just enjoying the time you get to have together. If you have found someone who is so special and you get to share your life with them, that is an outstanding thing to happen. Our earth, this lonely blue pebble, is populated by over seven billion people and each passing day it grows by 1.09%. More and more people are being born, and we live longer and more extravagant lives. Having the opportunity, the potential to experience true love is such a privilege, such a lucky outcome of a fortunate chain of events, that we should do our best not to compromise it with intoxicating thoughts and actions towards our potential partner or ourselves.
Dump your thoughts
This brings me to the final section, the crucial council I want to give you. Something which we forget, which I had forgotten until recently, is that there is power in writing. It is one thing to speak a goal, but to write it down is to make a conscious promise to yourself and then execute upon it. It is the same for unnecessary thoughts. You do not need to speak them out loud by complaining to other people. No, that is almost never helpful. Instead, get yourself a journal or a notebook or even just a piece of paper and write whatever is troubling your mind down in there. Dump all the pointless and stupid ideas flowing through your mind into that notebook and then look at them. I did this with my mom a few weeks ago when she could not decide whether or not to sign up for early retirement due to her Polymyositis. We ended up making a Pro/Con List and it turned out that all the Cons were dependent on what other people thought of here. They were pointless ideas and she only realized it once we had them on that piece of paper.
This will happen to you too. Write all of those stupid thoughts down and then look at them, consciously, and ask yourself whether or not your fear that is grounded in being possibly being ran over by a bus every morning is really something that is reasonable or just complete bullshit. Many of our thoughts actually are exactly that. Especially when it comes to decisions or big time life changes such as a romance, we tend to almost hunt for something that is wrong about it so we can be sad melancholic about it. Why is that? Because being negative is always easier than optimism.
But, in the long game, optimism wins. You either take the chance or you miss it. But the regret that comes from not taking the chance will be a lot more impactful than the one of having taken a chance and failed at it, you know that to be true; it´s a painful reality, but it´s a fact.
Negativity and inaction due to overthinking is always the easy way. But it will never pay off. It will drag you like an angry child and it will riddle you with guilt, if you don´t believe me, ask Joey, listen to his story about his godmother, and you´ll know what I mean. Dump all those stupid, deadly and corrupting thoughts on that piece of paper, and then recognize how pointless and dumb they are. There is rarely any reason or validity in those stupid thoughts, mostly they are shaped by the ugly hands of fear and excuses. And do you really want your life which is already in its very core tainted by malevolence, be corrupted by fear and excuses? I highly doubt that.
Choose optimism over negativity. Because if choose negativity and fear, you have already lost before you have even started.
