Modern life offers us more freedom than ever before. We can choose what to eat, where to live, who to become, and how to spend nearly every minute of our day. On the surface, that sounds ideal—a dream of infinite choice, infinite possibility. But somewhere between all those decisions, something strange happens: we freeze.
Overthinking has become the background music of our generation. It hums beneath daily life, quietly turning the simple into the complex and the joyful into the uncertain. A text message takes twenty minutes to write. A career choice becomes a source of existential dread. Even choosing what to watch on a streaming service becomes exhausting.
It’s not that we lack intelligence. It’s that our intelligence is turned inward—on a loop.
Philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre saw this paralysis coming. Kierkegaard called it the dizziness of freedom—that sense of vertigo when we realize just how many directions life can pull us in. Sartre, the existentialist, argued that humans are condemned to be free. With freedom comes responsibility, and with responsibility comes anxiety. We are not just choosing what to do—we are choosing who to be.
And so we overthink.
We try to game the future. We run every possibility through mental simulations. We imagine the perfect outcome, and then, when nothing measures up, we stall. The problem is that life isn’t meant to be lived on a spreadsheet. Life happens in motion, not in mental rehearsals.
Overthinking is rooted in a desire for control. If we can just think it through enough, maybe we won’t mess up. Maybe we won’t get hurt. But here’s the truth: overthinking is just another form of fear—fear of regret, fear of failure, fear of the unknown. And ironically, in trying to avoid those things, we create the very life we fear: one filled with missed chances and muted joy.
The Stoics offered a simple solution: act according to your principles, and let go of the rest. They didn’t obsess over every outcome—they focused on what they could control: their actions, their values, their present mindset. There’s something freeing in that. You don’t have to find the “best” decision. You just have to find a good one, and move forward with courage.
So if you’re caught in a spiral of overthinking, here’s a gentle reminder: the perfect moment doesn’t exist. The perfect choice doesn’t exist. What does exist is now. A moment asking for your presence, not your perfection.
Think less. Live more.
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