I was watching one of my favourite rom-coms, ‘Letters to Juliet’, lately, and I always have goosebumps when this a certain letter is read out loud. It says, “‘What’ and ‘if’ are two words as non-threatening as words can be. But put them together, side-by-side, and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life: ‘What if… what if… what if?’” These words have always come to mind when I am in a tricky situation where I’m overthinking way too much when the answer is staring me in the face.
The same words came to mind when I was talking to one of my best friends today, who was in a dilemma whether they should ask their crush out. I didn’t know what to say then, and I don’t have any advice right now either. All I know is that all of us have this tendency where we think that “we’re not good enough” for a certain person or thing in life, and eventually, we end up talking ourselves out of it because we’re hung up on the ‘what if’s’ and ‘but’s’ of it all.
I can’t tell anybody how to live their life, not unless my opinion is asked for. But I can tell you this: overthinking never helps anybody. Ever. I’m telling you this from experience that in every single situation that I’ve taken a leap of faith without overthinking it, I’ve done so well. On the other hand, I’ve made a mess out of perfectly good situations by reading too much into it. Sometimes, things really are that simple but we are unable to accept it because we are always taught that good things never come easy. Guess that was a life-lesson taught wrong.
Of course, I am, in no way, suggesting that you should throw away all logic and rational thinking when you have to make a decision that might have very huge repercussions. Some situations demand rationality, but some just do not. I am fully convinced that in life, we are only ever taught to over-analyze situations and be serious about everything all the time, and bring in at least 10 different ‘what if’s’ and ‘but’s’ in every single situation. I say this because I saw a math solution in my brother’s book that ended with 8 steps, but there were 5 more unnecessary steps, just for the heck of it. It’s everywhere!
We worry so much about what might happen in some distant future, we end up running away from happiness and fun just because we are terrified of the ‘what if’s’ that might not even happen. For every situation that could go swimmingly, we have a list of ‘what if’s’ all mapped out in our head like there’s some kind of nuclear apocalypse headed our way and we have no choice but exhaust every single possible outcome in our heads. In short, you relive the situation as many times as you overthink it. But what do I know, it’s completely up to you.
I know that a lot of people probably can’t help but overthink because a lot of other things come into play to them, things that we have had no firsthand experience in. But how would you know what the possible outcome would be unless you sucked it up and took that leap of faith simply because you wanted to be done with it, no matter what the result was? Some situations in life demand you to go with your gut because deep down, you know what’s best for you, and you know it’s exactly what you need in your life at the moment.
So, take it down a notch, why don’t you! Go do that thing you’re so scared of.
Cheerio! Xx
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Yours truly,
The Shubhster.
Featured Image by Joshua Earle on Unsplash
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