Reflecting on Ourselves
It’s midnight on 12th October 2023. I am listening to Jasmine Nadya’s cover of Don’t Look Back in Anger on YouTube. I don’t know why, but this song made me go into a whole conscious state of mind.
That got me curious. What makes me go into that full conscious state of mind? Is the song triggering something inside my head? Is midnight a time for me to go into this state? Or maybe I’m tired, and my mind is asking me to take a step back and contemplate what I have done with my life recently.
Life can move so fast if you don’t stop for a while. At least, that’s what I learned from reading half of the story of my chicken soup book. The title is “Menemukan Kebahagiaan” or in English, “Finding Happiness”. It was a present from my friend to me on my 19th birthday. The first sentence that came out of my mouth was, “Why the hell in the world are you giving me this book!?” I said jokingly. But was I really joking? That could be the universe telling me to stop, take a step back, and reflect on life. At least, that’s one of the things I got from reading this book.
You know, life has so many variables. It’s impossible to track all of them. There are some things you can control, some things you can influence, but there are also some things that you don’t get a say at all, even though you’ve done everything you can to make sure it does or does not happen. In psychology, it’s called the external locus of control. It’s a good read if you have the time.
With this in mind, you can understand what you should do. At least give some common sense to yourself that there are some things that you cannot control at all. This will make you realize that some things are not worth overthinking.
In my opinion, you can overthink about 2 things: the past and the future (I don’t know if overthinking about the past constitutes as overthinking, but this is my blog; take it with a grain of salt because I write the things that I want here :D). Using the worldview that overthinking sometimes doesn’t change anything that is unchangeable changed me. Well, you can’t change the past, right? So, by the external locus of control, it’s useless to even overthink things you could’ve done differently, the things you regret, etc. The only thing you can do is just to learn from it and improve yourself for the present and the future.
Talking about the future, you should not overthink about the future. From my experience, the thing you’re afraid of in the future is better than you think. All those scenarios that you have a tiny probability of happening, why? Because you’re thinking about the worst-case scenario (at least most of the time). Also, the universe isn’t so bad. It wouldn’t give you a hard time. You just need to persevere and go on if placed in a complicated situation. So, back to my original question. What makes me go into a full consciousness state of mind? I don’t know. It could be the combination of midnight and good music that activated something inside my mind. Whatever it is, I’m glad that I write this blog. I hope that this will give you something to contemplate. Seriously, tho, take a break. Take a step back. Be alone for one moment, and do not open your phone. Look back on all the good things that have happened for the past day or the past week if you still remember it. Be thankful for all the things. I know that it can be hard to be grateful if you’re in a bad place right now. Maybe your life is going downhill. But I believe that you can do it. You can persevere. You just need to hang on for your dear life and go on day by day.