In job interviews, when people ask you what your biggest weakness is, the correct response is to disguise a strength as a weakness. Which is bullshit if you ask me, but I suppose no one did. Examples of this include, “I’m a perfectionist; I need to make sure everything is done right because I have high standards for my work” and, “I’m too much of a people-pleaser; I'm teamwork-oriented so I always help out whenever someone needs it and I'm never able to let anyone down.”
Despite what rubbish I may spout in job interviews, I have many real weaknesses. Public speaking for one. Also my inability to say no and the fact that I become overwhelmingly moody and irritable when I’m stressed. (If you are a prospective employer who happened to stumble across my blog I’m totally kidding, please see the previous paragraph for my actual weaknesses.)
If I had to choose my biggest weakness it would probably be overthinking everything. All of my problems stem from this overarching problem. I overthink every aspect of my life and subsequently drive myself insane. I even overthink how I come across to strangers. It’s gotten so bad that whenever I walk by a policeman I get so nervous, sweaty and paranoid about looking suspicious that even though I am perfectly innocent I look like I just murdered ten people.
Overthinking is not healthy because it creates issues where there aren't any. If a friend doesn't text me back for an extended amount of time I descend into a rabbit-hole of insanity. Is this because I borrowed her dress the other day and haven't returned it yet? Is she mad because I bailed on going to the gym with her yesterday? Did she overhear me when I made fun of the way she sneezed? Then, after all that time spent wondering and worrying, she ends up strolling into my room, plopping down on my bed and saying, "Sup, I just woke up from a five hour nap, want to get dinner?"
It's also unhealthy to never forget things. Whenever I say something dumb it haunts me for the rest of my life. Two years ago, I was on the lower long walk and walking in my direction was a guy I sort of knew but not really. We were on the "say hey if you see each other but never have a conversation that goes deeper than that" level. As we passed each other he said, “Hey, how’re you?” and I replied, “good, how’re you?” Internally, I congratulated myself on responding appropriately. But my self-congratulations was premature because then he said, “not great actually” and my response to that was to nod, say “oh, good!” and keep walking. It’s been two years and I still think about that moment.
Overthinking can also take a toll on academics. The first couple years of college whenever I wanted to partake in the classroom discussion because I had something to say, the moment before I went to raise my hand I would start to overthink. What if the professor calls on you and everything you were about to say flies out of your head and you draw a complete blank? What if you think you’re saying coherent sentences but all that’s actually coming out is complete gibberish? I took painstaking measures to ensure that neither of these things happened. I would write down word for word what I was going to say in my notebook and then rehearse it in my head over and over again until I felt comfortable enough to raise my hand. I don’t do this anymore thankfully, but a small sense of paranoia still exists.
Even while writing this article I’m overthinking. Does this make me come across as mentally unstable? Is this too much information about the internal workings of my mind? Should I just erase this article and write an article on how much Salad Fingers disturbs me on a physical and spiritual level instead?
But the answer to all of those is no. Because although I will probably continue to overthink until the day that I die, I have come to accept that not everything that comes out of my mouth will be normal. And that's okay. After all, everyone else is weird too.
