by Grace Pappadellis ’29 on October 23, 2025
Opinion
It is reasonable to surmise that there’s remote danger in thinking too much about everything—your own life, others’ lives, and the world around you. Whether you’ve almost drowned in the pool of overthinking or even just slightly struggled to come up for air, there is a common understanding that no one likes to think too much, even in situations when more thinking is due.
For skilled swimmers like myself, I often wade in the overthinking waters. Even as a kid, I worried about everything—do my Barbie dolls hate their outfits? How will I hire enough waitstaff for my backyard restaurant? Why won’t my dog talk back to me? Even though these worries were all rooted in imagination, there was still some level of realism there, some hints of empathy for others, intrigue, or a longing to grow up. Was my overthinking hurting me? Or, was it only helping me think deeper?
Every day, you are faced with an idea, a task, a problem, or an event that requires some effort or consideration. Your mind captures the moment, processes the information, and your brain has the wonderfully instinctive ability to create thoughts, thoughts with truthful, definitive opinions. This process is sacred to decision-making. Every action you take is based on a thought you designed yourself, trivial or significant. You should honor your thoughts—they hold truth in how you really feel about something! Who wouldn’t want these efforts to be thorough? Don’t we make our best, most evocative decisions when we’ve taken careful measures?
In a perfect world, thinking and feeling are not relative to one another. Thinking about a choice in a profound, developed way would not result in any sort of stress or lethargy. Why can’t this “perfect world” actually be the real world? You can take control, you can nurture your thoughts, your opinions, and let them mature and flourish. You can think deeply, ponder, and let yourself feel the discomfort of thinking so much. It doesn’t mean your world has to revolve around the discomfort. Overthinking doesn’t have to be negative—it can serve as enrichment for your patterns of thought.
There’s a sense of relief in realizing that something didn’t really matter as much as you imagined, and you were simply overthinking it. You take a long, drawn-out breath, and you can finally think clearly again; there’s less unnecessary traffic in the streets of your brain. Little do you know, the effort you exerted on thinking that much could’ve been the key to recognizing something completely new about yourself—something you wouldn’t have been able to discover without a little extra work. Maybe you were overthinking the result of a test you studied a lot for, or you were spiraling about the way you came across during a highly anticipated conversation with someone. Regardless of these outcomes, your efforts only increase the likelihood of your success, because overthinking only shows that you care.
Now, if you find that you’re tying yourself in knots as your mind whirls and reels, take a step back. You have way more jurisdiction over your mind than you think. You have the ability to ground yourself, step out of the stress, and release yourself from the reins of your troubles. Don’t let the concept of overthinking infiltrate any other sort of thinking. To think and care a lot is to learn, and to learn is to be a progressive, intelligent person.