One Brain, Myriad Thoughts

I had a cup of coffee at 6 pm, and 6 hours later, I betray my circadian rhythm involuntarily. It’s not like I wasn’t trying hard enough to sleep, I just don’t like the idea of a wandering mind when I lie awake. That way, I decided to do stuff (not counting sheep, apparently) to keep my mind busy until I’m weary and sleepy. It is by chance that my mind always functions more under the moonlight, but now it is becoming excessive under the influence of caffeine at the same time.

I think it is good to have your mind sometimes wandered, especially when you’re reading. To have visualization and maximize it with your capability of mind-wandering are indeed important. Because when you read, you make a deal with yourself to let your mind travel, whereas your body can settle. But in times when you’re doing other than reading, and your mind isn’t necessarily on the right track, it is kind of disturbing. That happened to me a lot, and by saying that, I may as well be a hypocrite. Though I’m just simply not learning from my mistakes.

Mind-wandering is different from overthinking, as the latter causes more psychological problems. In my opinion, people who overthink consider such action as part of self-doubt that one would feel humane to dwell on to. For they believe, and I do too, that self-doubt can sometimes be a trigger to acknowledge one’s faults and weaknesses in order to keep flourishing. I just watched Brené Brown: The Call to Courage on Netflix, and I’ve been in total amazement ever since. She pointed out that in achieving greater things in life — creativity, comfort, joy — we need vulnerability in advance. And I reckon that overthinking is part of us being vulnerable, for instance: questioning our values, imagining what would happen next, thinking about what we could do differently, and the list goes on.

But only did I notice that people are not fair with their minds. They push their minds to think of the inevitable and desperately compel themselves trying to fix it, while they know they have limits. I believe some people have issues on how to take control of their minds to some extent, and I supposed my experiences in controlling mindfulness are something I need to gain more as well. But life is all about learning, and there’s no endpoint as long as we’re still alive. The only ending is when we breathe our last breath, and in the meantime, we still need to figure out how much we can get better.

So, I’d like to make a point here. Some people can be as oblivious as they can be; some people may not. We have to keep in mind that we are enough at that exact moment. The fact that the future requires a domino effect will leave you aware of the importance of the current situation. If you drain your mind for thinking too much and you can’t do the uttermost at the moment, your future would be at stake. And I’m heartily telling this just as much to myself as to you.