Thoughts Externalized

The price of thoughtfulness, why we deny what we don’t see, what abundance hides, and if we are good students

Photo by Nicolas Solerieu on Unsplash

The Cost of Thoughtfulness

One of the costs of being thoughtful is that you imagine a lot of scenarios beforehand. You think many things, and while not all of them will end up happening as envisioned, some will. This means you may not be as happy about things that others are excited about.

Children are happy because many things are new to them. These things, however, aren’t new to adults, and it would actually be unusual if we show the excitement that children do.

You may be filled with joy if something happens at ten times the magnitude you had pictured. But many things won’t happen this way. Actually, by the time something happens, it’s possible that you will have moved on to think about ten other things.

What is new to many could be something you have thought about tens of times. The cost of being thoughtful is living the future (or some aspect of it) in advance, thus being denied the spontaneity and suddenness that awes everyone else into happiness.