4 Bad Habits of Introspection
You can ask yourself too many questions.
24 questions.
That’s how many questions I would ask myself in the car as I drove to work. For context, that car journey is about 45 minutes long. That equates to relentless, 2-minute rounds of questioning, for 45 minutes straight; and that wasn’t just exclusively on the way into work. That would also happen on the way home from work, in the moments stood in line waiting for coffee, walking to and from meetings, pretty much any moment I had by myself, would be spent asking myself questions. And not small questions, don’t be silly, these were the big questions.
24 isn’t a huge number but multiple that number by 5 and times that by the number of days in the year and it’s not hard to see why I was mentally exhausted by 6 pm every day.
“Ask yourself if you are happy and you cease to be so.” — John Stuart Mill
Too many questions can be damaging and too much introspection can be exhausting. I found out the hard way. There is a fine balance to be struck between being inquisitive, seeking answers and berating yourself resulting in damaging conclusions. If you find yourself asking too much of yourself and spending too much time in introspection, here’s some food for thought of some…
