Have you ever wanted to know why some thoughts keep circling in your mind, even when you desperately want them to stop?
Maybe you’ve experienced this: someone says something to you, and instead of letting it go, you replay it over and over. You think about what they meant, why they said it, what you should have responded. Days pass, but your mind won’t let it go.
This is overthinking. It wastes your present and ruins your future because when you’re stuck in your head, you’re not actually living. Here’s how to understand it and break free.
The difference between thinking and overthinking
Do you notice that thinking itself isn’t the problem? Thinking is a biological process. You can’t stop it completely, and you shouldn’t want to. But overthinking is different.
Thinking helps you solve problems. Overthinking creates problems that don’t exist. Have you seen people who think about things that haven’t happened yet? Or things that happened years ago but can’t be changed?
The real issue isn’t thinking—it’s where your focus goes. Your thoughts should be about real problems in your life right now, not imaginary ones.
Understanding real vs. imaginary problems
Let me give you a simple example. Right now, we’re breathing comfortably. Are you thinking about oxygen? No. When your health is good, do you think about your health? No.
But if you suddenly couldn’t breathe, what would happen? Your mind would focus completely on getting air. Every thought would be about how to breathe. That’s not a problem—that’s your mind doing its job.
The same applies to water. If you have water, you don’t think about it. But if you went 10-12 hours without water and became desperately thirsty, would any other thought enter your mind? No. You’d think only about getting water as fast as possible.
That’s focused thinking solving a real problem. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of overthinking because it has a clear goal and a solution.
The problem with psychological thirst
Have you noticed that 99.99% of people are trying to satisfy psychological thirsts that have no end? They want to be rich, but they haven’t defined what “rich” means. They want success, but they can’t tell you what success looks like.
If I ask you, “How much money do you need to feel financially free?” and you can’t answer with a specific number, then you’ll never be satisfied. You’ll earn one crore and want two. You’ll earn ten crore and want a hundred.
You become a rich beggar—no matter how much you get, you’ll always want more. Inside, you’ll remain poor.
The root cause of overthinking
The core problem is this: we never properly define what we want in life. We don’t narrow down the two or three things that actually matter. Everything seems important, so we chase everything.
Have you noticed that most people don’t know how to say no? They can’t say no because they don’t know what’s important and what isn’t. When you don’t know what matters, you try to do everything and end up overwhelmed.
Real vs. imaginary goals create real vs. imaginary problems. If your goal is real and well-defined, your thinking will be solution-oriented. But if your goal is imaginary and keeps changing, your mind will never find peace.
The job trap
Let me ask you something practical. If you don’t have a job, you’re stressed about getting one. If you get a job, what happens? You’ll be stressed about keeping it, about your boss, about your salary, about promotions.
Have you thought about this contradiction? You say you want independence, but how will a job give you independence? In a job, you have zero independence. You’re answerable to someone else. You work on their schedule, follow their rules.
If you truly want independence, you need financial freedom—which means earning enough that you don’t need to work for someone else. But that’s not possible through a job alone.
So either be honest and say, “I don’t want independence, I want a comfortable, predictable life with a steady salary,” or stop lying to yourself about what you’re chasing.
Conflicting thoughts create overthinking
The reason your mind won’t shut up is because you’re saying one thing but doing another. You want one thing but chase something else. This internal conflict creates constant mental noise.
Have you noticed contradictions in your own thinking? You want to be creative, but you’re in a job that requires zero creativity. You want time freedom, but you work 60 hours a week. You want peace, but you surround yourself with drama.
When what you want doesn’t match what you do, your mind stays confused and restless. That confusion manifests as overthinking.
The marriage example
Let me give you another example. Do you think marriage will solve your problems? If you’re going into marriage thinking it’ll be a fairytale where someone sacrifices everything for you, you’re living in a dream world created by movies.
Reality? Two different people from different families and backgrounds will live together. There will be adjustments. There will be conflicts. That’s normal. If you’re prepared for 1-2 years of adjustment, fine. But if you expect perfection, you’ll be disappointed and overthink every little issue.
Practical vs. emotional thinking
Here’s something crucial: when you’re practical, overthinking doesn’t torment you as much. When you’re emotional, it torments you constantly.
I’m not saying emotions are bad. I’m saying you need to separate emotional thinking from practical thinking. Don’t make life decisions when you’re emotional. Don’t analyze situations through an emotional lens alone.
Have you seen people who take everything personally? Who get hurt by random comments? Who create entire narratives about what someone meant? That’s emotional overthinking, and it’s exhausting.
The solution isn’t adding more—it’s simplifying
Most people think the solution to overthinking is to add something: meditation, therapy, hobbies, friends, substances. But temporarily distracting yourself doesn’t solve anything. When the distraction ends, the overthinking returns, often stronger.
The real solution is to remove the root cause. And the root cause is usually one of these:
You haven’t defined your real goals. You’re chasing psychological desires that have no endpoint. You’re living according to others’ expectations instead of your own values. You’re avoiding real problems by creating imaginary ones.
The four states of consciousness
Do you know there are four states of consciousness, but most people only experience two? Waking and dreaming. You’re either “awake” but lost in thoughts, or you’re asleep having dreams.
But there’s a third state: deep sleep, where no thoughts exist. And there’s a fourth state: pure awareness, where you’re fully awake but not lost in thoughts. Most people have never experienced this fourth state even once in their lives.
Have you ever sat quietly and just observed without thinking? Not for a few seconds, but for 15-20 minutes? If you haven’t, you don’t know what it means to truly be awake. You’ve been living in a dream—a dream where you’re constantly talking to yourself inside your head.
The experiment
Here’s something you can try. Go somewhere silent for a few days without your phone, without distractions. Just sit. Don’t do anything. Don’t meditate, don’t try to control thoughts—just sit and watch what happens.
Initially, your mind will go crazy. Thoughts will flood in. You’ll feel restless, maybe angry, maybe anxious. But if you stay with it, after a few days, your mind will exhaust itself. It will run out of fuel.
That’s when you’ll experience what it means to truly be awake for the first time. You’ll realize that the life you’ve been living was a dream. All your worries, your achievements, your dramas—they were stories you told yourself.
The question you need to ask
So here’s the most important question: Do you want to keep living in that dream, or do you want to wake up?
If you want to stay in the dream, fine. Chase your job, your marriage, your money, your status. There’s nothing wrong with that. But don’t complain about overthinking, because overthinking is part of the dream.
But if you’re serious about stopping overthinking, you need to ask deeper questions: What am I? What is this mind that won’t shut up? What is thinking? What is this universe made of? What is real and what is imaginary?
These sound like big philosophical questions, but they’re actually the most practical questions you can ask. Because once you have clear answers, everything else becomes simple.
The practical path
Here’s what I suggest. First, get your basic survival handled. Get to a point where you’re not worried about food, shelter, or money. That doesn’t mean become rich—it means reach a comfortable baseline where you’re not in constant survival mode.
Once that’s handled, then focus on the real work: understanding yourself. Not controlling your mind, but understanding what mind even is. Not managing thoughts, but seeing what thoughts actually are.
Because here’s the truth: you can’t control thoughts. That’s like trying to control the weather. But you can understand where they come from, why they arise, and how they disappear. And when you understand that, they lose their power over you.
Final thoughts
So, have you thought about what really matters? Overthinking happens when you have unclear goals, conflicting desires, and no real purpose. It happens when you’re chasing things you don’t actually want, trying to meet expectations that aren’t yours, and avoiding the real questions about life.
The solution isn’t to add more to your life. It’s to subtract. Subtract the false goals, the imaginary problems, the borrowed dreams. Get clear on what actually matters to you—not to society, not to your parents, not to your friends—to YOU.
And once you’re clear? Once you know exactly what you want and why you want it? Once you stop lying to yourself about what you’re chasing? The overthinking starts to dissolve on its own.
Because a clear mind doesn’t overthink. A clear mind thinks when thinking is needed and rests when it’s not. And that clarity comes not from controlling thoughts, but from understanding the nature of thinking itself.
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