How can we overcome the tendency to overthink?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you very much. Thinking about every small matter.
Yes. See, there is thinking and there is over-thinking. What is the main difference between the two? There is thinking as the preparation for action.
And there is thinking as a substitute for action. That means, I just keep thinking, thinking, thinking and I don’t know anything at all. So that is over-thinking.
So for example, if I go to a, if I have some disease and I go to a doctor and the doctor tells me, this is your problem. Now I am saying, this diagnosis can be wrong. Maybe I should go to a second doctor.
I take a second opinion and I go to a third doctor. Now if I go to ten doctors and take their diagnosis but don’t take any prescription at all, I will never be cured. It is possible that a particular doctor’s diagnosis can be wrong.
But then, if I don’t take the diagnosis, I will not even know it is wrong. So, at some point, I go to a doctor, I evaluate, I give the diagnosis. If it makes sense, then I take the medicine.
And after I take the medicine, if it doesn’t work, if I decide to take it for one week, if it doesn’t work, I go to some other doctor. So, just as in treatment, we use our intelligence to evaluate, but afterwards we act. The same way, in our life, whenever we face some situation, sometimes we may, we may learn even by making a mistake.
So, if certain situation, we find that certain situation, we just don’t make any decisions, then better to make a decision and we shouldn’t think of life as just make or break with every decision. Or rather, it’s not in every situation, life is always, our decisions are always in terms of right and wrong. Sometimes decisions may be not right or wrong in terms of digital logic, but then more like analog, analog decisions, you know.
Something is more right, something is less right. So, for example, if I am going from here to here, I take a road, but then I find this road is not going here, it’s going this way. Oh, I have gone one track, then I come back one track.
So, it’s not that at that time I have to come back here. I can actually move like this and I can come back. So, same way, it’s not that on every decision that we make, our life is dependent.
So, we are finite beings and we work with finite resources. So, based on what we know, we do, we act. And after we act, we find, okay, this has not worked out, then we change it.
So, actually, surrender means surrender can have many meanings. One meaning of surrender is surrender means to do what we can with what we have now. Surrender means to do what we can with what we have now.
Okay, I have to make a decision in this situation. This is the knowledge that I have. This is the ability that I have.
This is what I need. And if that works out, well, fine. If it doesn’t work out, fine, we can always learn and move forward.
So, overthinking means that we are instead of acting, so, there is thought and there is action. So, actually, there is sattva guna, rajo guna and tamo guna. In the mode of goodness, thought comes first, action comes later.
In rajo guna, action comes first, thought comes later. In tamo guna, neither thought nor action. There is only illusion.
Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. Some people wonder what happened.
So, we shouldn’t be left in that category, wonder what happened. We should make, we should do things. And sometimes they will work out right, sometimes they will not work out.
Fine, we learn and we move onwards in our life.