Over Thinking, Anaylzing, Criticizing, and Emotions

I often wonder and think about stuff whether it's about stuff I'm interested in or whether it's about my faith or people (in my life or what have you).  At times I over think and I over analyze certain things.  You might say that I consciously think and you may say that is a good thing.  But I truly have a hard time believing that.  It gets me in these moods.  I don't like getting in these moods.  If you read my posts from last summer than you would know what I am talking about in terms of these moods.  I think when I'm bored, can't sleep, at work, etc..  I try to have things that occupy my mind so I don't get into over thinking.  But I still do.

I talked about this with my friend Mark on Skype yesterday and he can totally relate to where I'm coming from.  He said that certain people, especially females don't like it when you analyze everything.  I've never thought about that before and it actually does make sense.  Looking back at talking with my one friend, I can totally see now that I analyzed a lot of stuff.  I told my friend on Skype that I need to change this.  I also find that my over analyzing of stuff is a way of me being honest.  I even over analyze stuff in my head and it ends up at times spilling over into my conversations.  That is something I need to be more conscious of when I talk to people.  Especially friends that is.

Another thing that my friend said on Skype is that he noticed I tend to give criticism before praise.  I've never noticed that about myself.  But everybody has something they don't notice about themselves.  Everybody criticizes, but some people do it more than others.  Maybe because I don't notice it, I don't know how often I do it.  I told him that I do need to work on this as well.  I guess need to find a healthy balance between  criticism and praise.  With a bit of effort, I hopefully will be able to do this.  He said that people react in the opposite way than you thought when you criticized them.  I've noticed that too.  So as I said, I need to find a balance between criticism and praise.

I told my friend on Skype that sometimes I wish I was a Stoic.  But it's hard to not think emotionally.  It's easier said than done to not to.  He said he feels that way at times, but even when he feels indifferent he feels everything is meaningless.  I'm not always able to think or act logically because it's easier to wallow in emotions than it is logic.  Logic takes effort in a different way than emotions do.  Logic can make you do what's best or what's right.  Emotions can be make you do something on impulse.  If I didn't have the ability to feel emotions, than I wouldn't feel strongly as I do about certain things or certain people.  But such as it is...