Calling all overthinkers -- you know who you are. You knew you were an overthinker before you clicked the link to read this article. You’ve known all your life. Why? Because you’ve thought about it, of course! We overthinkers certainly have minds unlike any other. We are complex, interesting people, always throwing curve balls at society and dipping our toes into whatever waters we can find. Here are just a few qualities that make us overthinkers, well, over thinkers.

We are prepared for everything.

Of course we are! We’ve already thought about it ten times over: what to say, what to do, how to act, etc. We are prepared for any situation that comes our way because we have invented scenario after scenario of all the possibilities of what could happen.

We are typically pretty good at essay questions on tests.

Whatever the question is, we can just sit there and write paragraph after paragraph of all the tiny little factors that could be related to the topic. Hand cramps are a regular, but it’s usually worth it! That is unless we go overboard and get marks off for ranting, which sadly happens often.

We often overestimate potential.

Overthinkers are people who, despite all the other options, try to see the best in everything. We’ve already thought about it, so we assume others have, too. So when we ask someone to do something, often times it falls a little short of our expectations. Now, the job is done perfectly fine, but we overthinkers have mulled it over so many times that we’ve made it more complicated than it really is.

Overthinkers are great judges of character.

We are observers, people who try to gain knowledge from just about anything, especially other people. So when it comes to giving advice or trying to explain a conflict, we typically nail it right on the head. This is perhaps the greatest strength of an over thinker.

We are awful judges of time.

Overthinkers are often the people who are chronically late to everything. We can’t leave the house without going over our checklist ten thousand times and making sure everything is in order for when we get back.

We are never satisfied.

There are so many things to see and learn! An overthinker is never complacent with what they have; there is always something more to see or do or obtain. This poses a real problem in daily life because it leads to bad spending habits, relationship complications, and trouble making up our minds about anything permanent.

Relationships are tough.

We are hard people to be in relationships with. We believe there is always potential for something to happen, or go wrong. Communication is a struggle because we can’t communicate without writing a novel, usually just confusing our counterparts. When emotional complications arise, we have such a hard time meddling through our thoughts that we sometimes forget to follow our hearts

We’re fabulous procrastinators.

We can obtain a lot of knowledge in a little amount of time and we do so efficiently and productively. Cramming for a test is a normal thing, and seldom do we truly suffer for it. It’s a perk; a bad habit, but a perk.

Nothing is ever simple, but nothing is too complicated.

If anything is simple, we are immediately thrown off by it, racking our brains for a deeper understanding. On the contrary, nothing is ever too complicated. Solving the mind puzzles of life is what we do; it’s never a bad thing to have an overthinker on your side; sometimes annoying, but often times helpful, too.

Whatever you thought about, we thought about it before you.

I’ll bet money that whatever you’ve thought of as a solution to a problem or a way to do something, your overthinker friend has already thought it through and is double checking your steps, making sure you’re doing it right. We’re sometimes headstrong in that way, but we are seldom ever misled.

We’re those people who are “friends with everybody.”

We’ve explored all the qualities of others that we can manage, so understanding and appreciating people’s differences comes naturally.

We’re insecure about our overthink-itude.

Any time drama came up when we were growing up, the first thing we would hear is, “You’re overthinking it!” We get called complicated, too much, or dramatic. It sucks being an overthinker, sometimes, because you just want to relax about something, but there’s a needle in your brain pointing all different directions and you simply can’t calm down until whatever issue is resolved.

There are a lot of great qualities about us overthinkers, and a lot of qualities we sometimes wish we could do without. At the end of the day, though, it’s nice to feel like you know your stuff; it gets you one step closer to having your crap together, which truthfully, in college, is a wonderful feeling. It’s taken me a long time to appreciate my complicated mind, but it is something that makes me unique; it sets me apart as an individual and I am proud to be a little too much sometimes.