Daily Blog post 403
I wish I wasn’t the type of person to overthink and overreact to simple life events. And then, of course, I overthink that sentence and then realize that the only type of person I want to be is the type of person who overthinks and overreacts to everything.
I’ve gone to a fair share of college parties now. They are different from the parties I went to in high school in that I don’t know everyone, and I now feel obligated to have a good time. Work hard play hard mentality, I suppose.
There are certainly different roles at a party. There are people who are the life of the party. People hitting on other people. There are dancers, screamers, people who keep trying to take shots. There is the person who ends up breaking stuff. Some people fall asleep, and some people continue the party even after everyone has left. Then there are the introverts like me who can’t be bothered to have more than 5 conversations.
When I attend parties, I inevitably end up thinking more than I end up partying.
“When I am inside writing,
all I can think about is how I should be outside living.
When I am outside living,
all I can do is notice all there is to write about.
When I read about love, I think I should be out loving.
When I love, I think I need to read more.”
I spend most of my time at a party thinking about whether or not I should be somewhere else. Whether or not I should be joining the conversations, or joining the game, or meeting new people. Or maybe I should have just stayed home and bathed in my own thoughts. There is a pretty girl across the room. There is my friend dancing and enjoying myself. There is a group of people I wish I could be friends with. I wonder if they have similar thoughts.
When I am in my bed relaxing, an Elon Musk motivational video reminds me that for every hour I spend taking a break, there is someone else out there working hard to get ahead of me.
But how can I live a life where my mind is not physically present?
My body sits in this house party, and my mind is spiraling, lost.
And so I’ve begun practicing mindfulness. I’ve begun to learn that the words that come out of my mouth in every conversation are unique because I don’t have time to write and re-edit them like I can with these blog posts. Instead, I’ve learned that the words I utter shape the life I’d like to live, a life of presence, a life of living in the moment.
Just go out there and enjoy myself. Make mistakes. Embarrass myself (though I’m actually quite good at that). Take a leap. Speak my mind. I don’t need to overthink everything. After all, I’ll always have time to reflect on my decisions after the fact, like in these posts, but if I never do anything, I won’t get a chance to reflect. A part of me wants to escape this party. Another part of my wants to be the life of the party. Cognitive dissonance is a weird feeling. I just need to make a decision and go with it instead of overthinking.
Blog of Jeff Wang 