The Power of Overthinking

For The Guardian, Annalisa Barbieri wrote Why I’m glad that I’m an ‘overthinker’.

“Just going with it” is not something I do. I have to really understand what I’m doing and then I think through almost every possibility and eventuality, like a mind map on steroids. And I plan. When people say things like: “Who could have imagined XYZ would happen?” about some entirely predictable outcome, my most common response is “I could”. I have realised that for most people I am an overthinker, but for me, it is others who underthink. I just think.

I have taken my foot off the overthinking pedal in recent years, but that paragraph more or less describes me to a T. My anxiety and overthinking used to feel like a handicap, like something to be overcome, but Oliver Burkeman’s persuasive argument in The Antidote convinced me to think about my anxiety as useful and even a little bit of a superpower, as long as it doesn’t spiral out of control.

• Annalisa Barbieri