Sometimes, a Cigar Is Just a Cigar
Sometimes, objects and events don’t need deep interpretations.
“Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar,” Sigmund Freud once said.
It might have been a strange quote coming from Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, who seemed to take a deeper look at almost everything. Of course, the cigar is a big phallic symbol in Freud’s work. It would usually have a very complicated meaning like most of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory.
However, not everything needs to be complicated. A cigar just being a cigar means it doesn’t need to be a big phallic symbol or have a huge academic thesis written about it. Some things just are — the cup of coffee you drink in the morning does not need to be a grand representation of your worldview and spiritual beliefs, nor does your sleep ritual need to be a symbol for your approach to life.
Some things are just simple. They don’t need to be overanalyzed. They don’t have to be overthought.
And not only did Freud overanalyze, but we also overanalyze our life events and decisions all the time. We read deeper meaning into simple decisions like cleaning, driving, and going out to dinner than there actually is.
Why can’t a decision just be a decision? Not every decision stems from a contentious…
