Overthinking...

Okay, so how random is this? I'm biking home from Crane's, minding my own business, thinking - well some would say 'overthinking' - about how to increase my average speed, and look what I passed! Someone actually painted "DON'T OVER THINK IT" on a telephone pole utility box!

It caught me so off guard that I went off the pavement into the sand and almost wiped out. Thankfully, I remembered as I was starting to fall over that my feet were clipped to my pedals and got them out before I hit the ground.

Seeing this really made me laugh out loud. And if you knew me, you'd be laughing, too. Because, well, I tend to overthink things on a regular basis. And you may have noticed that I've since applied this way of thinking to my new biking endeavor and how slow I think I am.

I like to think of my tendency to overthink as a character asset rather than a character flaw (especially since up until recently, my job title included the word "analyst") but I know it's a habit that drives some people a little crazy, including me. The ironic thing is, I often hear myself doling out advice to others not to overthink things. Just last week, I offered to a frustrated coworker to "not overthink" the situation.

When I got home from my ride, I had to Google this expression to make sure it wasn't some new advertisement or political slogan of sorts, but I came up with nothing. So I have to conclude that it was a little bit of serendipity, put there for me to read at that exact moment as I was riding by overthinking when I shouldn't have been. So lesson learned: I'll try to stop worrying about my speed and just focus on enjoying my ride and being safe on the road. But I'm still left wondering, who wrote that message and why did they put it there of all places? Hmmm... something else for me to overthink about....