Overthinking It

I dunno.. Did I?

Overthinking It: I dunno… Did I?
By your favourite lovable Irish rogue who thinks too much and sleeps too little

Overthinking.
It’s not a compliment. It’s a warning label.

Say you’re a “deep thinker” and people nod like you’ve just quoted Plato over breakfast… with a side of kale.
Say you “overthink”, and suddenly you’re the person who sleeps with their eyes open and rehearses five different endings to every conversation… including the ones that never even happened.

I feel like there’s this unspoken hierarchy of mental engagement:

Under thinker → Thinker → Over-thinker

At the bottom, you’ve got the under thinkers.
Those breezy humans who treat “fine” as the full stop to any emotional sentence.
They never feel the need to say, “Actually, what’s really wrong.”
They’re like ducks on a pond… serene, gliding, unbothered… just floating through life in Zen mode.

And me?
I’m not the duck. I’m the legs underneath.
Flapping like a maniac to keep the illusion of calm… desperately paddling through every possible outcome while trying to look like I’ve got it all together.
I forgot how to be chill about three lifetimes ago.

Graceful-ish above water (on a good day), but underneath… oh, it’s chaos.
My legs are kicking like a caffeinated squirrel fighting a swarm of bees, swimming through a thousand hypothetical disasters… all while keeping a perfectly calm face.
And for this? No trophies. No emotional gold stars. Nada.

In the middle, you have your classic thinkers.
Sensible. Measured. The kind of people who sip green tea and casually drop Aristotle quotes at dinner parties.
Society loves them. They’re the mental equivalent of a sturdy pair of loafers.

But us over-thinkers?
We’re the ones who can’t hit the off switch.
Who lie awake crafting the perfect reply to a text sent three days ago… from someone who’s probably forgotten the conversation ever happened.
We don’t just feel things… we dissect them, fold them into origami, and analyse them in five dimensions with footnotes and citations.

Give me one word and I’ll find five reasons you said it… and two reasons you didn’t mean it.

Here’s the kicker nobody tells you: overthinking isn’t weakness.
It’s untamed intelligence gone rogue.

Psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema found that people who ruminate… who revisit thoughts like they’re Netflix shows to binge… often score higher in analytical reasoning.
The catch? “Rumination is a problem when it replaces action.”

And that hit home.

Locked in a cold detention cell, far from my partner and daughter, stuck in limbo…
the overthinking didn’t stop.
It just turned up many notches.

And I thought: This has to mean something.
These thoughts have to do something.
Or I’m done for.

So I gave them a job.

I started writing.
I turned spirals into sentences.
I transformed chaos into something that might just help someone else breathe a little easier.

And that’s how Unshackled was born.
Not a plan. A lifeline.
Alchemy, really… turning a million restless thoughts into a raft.

A couple of months on, that little raft has over 500 subscribers, workshops, a mentorship program, and real conversations with real impact.

None of that came from underthinking… or just thinking.
It came from feeling like I was drowning in thoughts and deciding to build a damn boat.

So no, I’m not ashamed of my overthinking anymore.
It’s messy, sure. It keeps me up at night.
But it also sees connections others miss.
It spots danger before it arrives.
It builds, it creates, it prepares.

I know I’m alive because my thoughts pulsate endlessly.

Neuroscientist Ethan Kross calls it “chatter”… the dark side of our inner voice.
But he says the goal isn’t to silence it.
It’s to harness it.

I used to drown it in alcohol. Dumbing down the world made it easier to live in.

It’s been a long time since I used that crutch, nor have I desired to do so.

And that’s what I’m learning.

Just like alcoholics have
”One day at a time.”

Us over-thinkers just have
”One thought at a time.”
One wild, overthought, half-baked… but somehow beautiful… idea at a time.

If you’re like me… a chronic over-thinker with a restless mind and a good heart… maybe you’re not broken.
Maybe you’re just built for depth.
And remember: depth is for diving, not drowning.

Overthinking isn’t the enemy.
But it will be… if you don’t learn to steer it… and steer it safely.

So give it a job.
Turn it into something.
Make it count.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about all that.
...But maybe I’m overthinking it.
I dunno. Let me think about it.

Stay Unshackled, My Friends.