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comment by insomniasexx
insomniasexx  ·  3650 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Lil's Book of Questions: Are You Reflective?

    I suspect my life is 70% reflection and 30% experience. I argued that reflection itself is experience, but he disagreed.

I think that reflection can be a sort of experience, but if you do too much reflection, you may end up in an infinite loop where you are reflecting on your reflections, rather than experiencing new things to enjoy and reflect on.

I don't consider myself an exceptionally reflective person, however I have been known to overthink things on occasion to the determent of my sanity. I think that the difference between reflection and overthinking things have to do with your mental state and what you hope to achieve. At least for me, when I overthink things, I am repeating the event or situation over and over in my head in attempt to derive meaning or see if I could have achieved different, better results. From there, the thoughts jump to the future, "What am I going to do next time I see them? How is this going to effect that tomorrow? Do I have time to do this and that? Can I avoid this?" Often times there isn't true purpose (besides the aforementioned attempts to change the past) which leads to string of chaotic and spastic anxieties.

Whether it is fireworks or an awkward encounter at a bar, reflection should occur when the experience is complete and/or you have accepted the finality of it. You can't change it. It's just an experience in the past that you can now use to grow and learn from.