I’ve always thought myself to be an introspective person and was under the impression that this is a positive attribute. But I must admit I was wrong.

The fact is, too much introspection causes analysis paralysis, never allowing you to blossom into the person of your dreams and realize your potential.

Introspection commonly masquerades as fear. Let’s say in actuality you’re scared to put yourself out there and go after what you want, so you rationalize it as “introspection” but it’s really just fear.

I’m sure you’ve heard the quote:

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates

But this is not the whole story, as the over-examined life is also not worth living.

Finding a balance is key, because if you do things without any thinking whatsoever it is a recipe for disaster. For people (such as myself) that lean a bit more on the introspective side, you do have to feign ignorance to an extent.

It doesn’t feel comfortable, but that’s how you know it’s working.

Allow yourself to be a bit stupid sometimes and run the risk of coming off as foolish. In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal at all. Have the self-confidence to know that whatever happens to you, you’ll be able to bounce back stronger and better than before.

Otherwise you’ll run the real risk of living your entire life doing nothing of substance at all—longingly looking back to the past with deep feelings of regret and of a life wasted.

The biggest risk in life is to never do anything risky at all.

Knowing Versus Doing

Knowing a lot of things is cool, but at the end of the day if you cannot apply any of this knowledge it amounts to nothing more than mental masturbation.

In one of my previous posts I mentioned this idea of being biased towards action.

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

Leonardo da Vinci

When you’re truly living life, you don’t spend it checking in with your thoughts at all times. Living in the moment and simply doing what you want doesn’t requite you to be in this mode of introspection, in fact it is quite the opposite.

If you’re so caught up in your thoughts, you’re going to be prone to procrastinating or finding reasons why you shouldn’t go for what you want in life. As you stir up more and more thoughts, you’re simply going to talk yourself out of things.

You’re so much better off taking action and if it blows up in your face, so be it.

For example, in order to write this blog post, I have to get out of my own head and get my thoughts onto the page. It’s simple.

The more time I spend in my head thinking about what I’m going to write about, the less time I actually get to write. Introspective induced overthinking becomes a vicious cycle of shooting myself in the foot.

This is why it is so important to become the type of person who is biased towards taking action, and dealing with the consequences after the fact.

Don’t ever let your thoughts get in the way… they may seem like your friend but when they’re allowed to proliferate unchecked it’s a recipe for disaster.

Authenticity and Irrational Self-Confidence

Whenever I create something that I really love, I truly believe that what I am doing is inherently valuable, and the only “thought” is that I want to express myself as clearly and as authentically as possible. The process is the reward.

There cannot be anything else to it, when I write I am writing for myself.

I gain all of the enjoyment in the world from doing something well, and improving at something I truly love.

Even if nobody wants to read what I have to say, and this entire blog post fades into the void at least I still get a kick out of writing it.

Sure, it would be cool to become rich and famous doing something that I love but at the end of the day that isn’t the most important thing to me.

When you pour your heart and soul into something, you cannot help but come off as authentic. There are no empty words and pretension to hide behind, just raw unadulterated facts.

Authenticity runs so deep that it can never be faked. Technology like AI can try to mimic human authenticity, but this is the essence of the artistic spirit. This is why you can look back to poetry or art from 1000s of years ago and still have it resonate like it was created 5 minutes ago.

Authenticity is timeless and impossible to fake.

Know thyself and allow your most authentic thoughts flow out of you, employ irrational self-confidence and trust that whatever you create is worthy of love.

Everything you create, no matter how big or small, is in some way a part of you. It deserves to be loved like an extension of yourself.

I think once you realize that all your creations deserve love, even if you don’t think they’re your best, it frees you to create whatever you please without worrying about judgement

The less time you spend worrying if your creations are good enough, and the more time you spend actually creating, the better and more authentic your life will become.

Sometimes the smartest thing you can do in life is allow yourself to be a little stupid.