I Cannot Live in the Moment

I am what I like to refer as a meta-thinker. It sounds like it could be something cool, right? But actually it's a colossal waste of my own time and probably everyone else that I interact with.

By meta-thinker I mean that I spent an inappropriate amount of time thinking about whether I should be thinking about what I'm thinking about.

Let me try and simplify it for you.

There are people who just 'do'. These people, by the time the thought has coallesced their body is already putting it into action. They're already feeling the benefits of physical movement or interaction from acting on their thoughts and they won't really stop to consider whether they should be doing any of it.

There are people who wonder if they should have the thought that they are having. They think of self doubt, they question themselves and wonder if they are good enough or brave enough to act upon it. These people self reflect and adjust behaviours before doing the action. The important thing is that they still do it in a reasonable timeframe.

Then, there is the meta-thinkers. The have everything the self-reflectors do, expect they also add another layer. They think about how someone else might think about what the are thinking about and their corresponding actions and try to 'do' something which meets the criteria of the thoughts of that third-party watcher.

It's actually a crazy way to be, considering telepathic powers are widely considered not to exist and it's like running a whole virtual world alongside the real world with no real way of reconciling the worlds together because one is a self-centric simulation.

Why am I like this?

My opinion is that it's decades of masked spectrum and trying to 'blend in' with whoever I am around. I have lots of hangups and habits around dealing with people that can make me act very strange if I get burnt out or overwhelmed.

For as long as I can remember I've tried to brute force social situations, or put up a character wall to deal with people. For as long as I can remember I've swung into deep depression after particularly difficult masking durations. But it's only recently that I'm no trying to pull myself out of that.

Please join me as I embark on a quest to find my own identity and enjoy the doing in life. Because if you don't enjoy the journey, they you won't enjoy most of your life. Which sounds pretty bad.