Se non siete Immanuel Kant e non state scrivendo la Critica della ragion pura, per noi umani che viviamo nel mondo adattandoci al mondo, risolvendo problemi, il pensiero è sopravvalutato. Pensate di meno. Fate meno bilanci di chi siete veramente. Fate di più. Fatevi attirare dagli stimoli del nostro mondo, che è pieno di cose interessanti da guardare. E questa è una regola molto importante sia in ambito patologico, perché riduce la sofferenza mentale, ma è anche una regola per una vita più serena.
Unless you are Immanuel Kant writing the Critique of Pure Reason, for us humans who live in the world by adapting to it and solving problems, thinking is overrated. Think less. Take stock of who you really are less often. Do more. Let yourselves be drawn by the stimuli of our world, which is full of interesting things to look at. This is a very important rule in pathology, because it reduces mental suffering, but it is also a rule for a more serene life.
Info & reflection: Sandra Sassaroli has been a psychiatrist since 1979 and later trained in systemic and cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy. She founded and chairs the Gruppo Studi Cognitivi, a network of postgraduate schools of cognitive psychotherapy, and presides over inTHERAPY, a psychotherapy clinic. These are the closing lines of her TEDxLerici talk on overthinking (rimuginio). Just before, she gives the example of coming home the night before a job interview: the useful move is to leave the thought where it is, hug your partner, talk to your kids, watch a film, instead of being caught "in a useless and rigid way" by abstract thinking that has nothing useful in it. The point is clinical, not anti-intellectual: endless self-assessment feeds anxiety, and turning attention outward is part of the cure.