How I stopped being an overthinker | Tally Feingold | TEDxLFHS

Transcriber: Sarah M Reviewer: Anna Sobota Well, I want to tell you a story. When I was little, I loved butterflies. And, I guess this isn’t very unusual for little kids, but I remember literally spending hours in my backyard with a pink net, patiently waiting for a butterfly to land, so I could swoop one up.

I wanted to capture their beauty. However, in actuality, I pretty much only caught common moths, and my sister was scared of them, so that didn’t work out the best for me. But, I never could’ve imagined how impactful butterflies would be on my life.

Not butterflies specifically, per se, but the butterfly effect. Now, I think most people have heard the term butterfly effect thrown around, even if just in a casual sense. How many of you guys have heard of this phenomenon, or at least the phrase?

There we go, some of you, yeah, most of you, okay. Well, for those of you who don't know, this term was coined in 1960 by a meteorologist named Edward Lorenz. And the idea can be defined basically that something as minuscule as the flap of a butterfly's wings can cause something as gigantic as a tornado.

Let me say that again: the flap of a butterfly’s wings can cause a tornado. If you’ve never heard of the butterfly effect before, you probably are rolling your eyes, and that’s okay, because the first time I heard of this, I thought it was crazy. That is, until I realized how big of an impact this simple concept could have on my own life.

Let me give you some context. I am a little bit of an overthinker. Every small thing in my life is, for some reason, 1000 times more important.

Like I save all of my work until the last minute because I’m so scared that it won’t be perfect. Ask me to pick a restaurant, I promise you, you've never seen anybody sweat more in your entire life. But that’s just the way it’s always been for me.

And I don’t know why, but that’s just the way my head works. And so actually, when I found out about the butterfly effect, I was terrified, like, oh, terrific, now I’m scared that if I make a decision, I’m going to accidentally cause the end of the world or something. That’s what I need, that’s great.

But I was also really intrigued by it, and maybe this was just because it had butterfly in the name, I won’t even lie to you. But the more I read on it, the more I got sucked in, and I realized this is actually an incredibly complex idea that deals with one of my biggest fears, a loss of control, and also the academic. And by that I do mean the slightly nerdy part of me knew that this idea made logical sense.

It’s grounded in science, the science that Edward Lorenz created to support it. And that science is basically this. Now hold on.

Science isn’t really my cup of tea. Don’t worry, I won’t get sciency. I’ll just say it in the simplest possible terms.

Nature is infinitely connected and intertwined, so therefore, any tiny thing can cause anything else to happen and well, everything just kind of butterfly effects. And to me, that was confusing but it also made perfect sense. And so, I came to a conclusion.

I could either keep pushing back against this inevitable outcome that was just kind of part of life, or I could kind of melt into it and hope to find some peace. Now, this may seem like an easy and obvious decision to all of you, but it just wasn't for me. The butterfly effects and applying it to one’s life can be called a lot of things.

It could be called living fearlessly. It could be called trusting your gut, and even something as simple as just not overthinking. But I was never able to just listen to those things as advice for how to live my life.

So why was this any different? Well, I don't really know, but it provided me with the framework and structure that I needed within my head to help organize my thoughts, because I couldn't just turn them off. Some days my brain would exhaust me and it was that exhaustion that pushed me to finally give in.

And so I did. I completely surrendered myself to the fact that all of my decisions, no matter how tiny, could lead to or prevent anything else from happening in my life or in the world. Because if anything can cause everything anyways, why shouldn’t I just live the way I want?

And this was honestly freeing. It lifted me up. It made me feel lighter.

It made me feel more confident in my own decisions. The butterfly effect and thinking of the butterfly’s wings every time I question something in my own head, made me realize how little every little decision that I had sweat over previously, actually mattered. They were all just another step of life.

And to me, it was really wild to think that although my overthinking still didn’t really fully go away, sadly, now I had a rationale for myself when I began to overthink. This idea that I found while just scrolling on my phone one day, it changed my life, and by quieting down my head, it opened up my heart. Okay, that was really cliché, I know, let me rephrase, and hopefully I can redeem myself.

I'm going to tell you guys another little story. When I was little, my mom used to tell my siblings and me to follow our little voice. So, naturally, I pictured a man living in my stomach telling me what to do.

Because what else would you picture? And as I got older, I found that it became more and more difficult to listen to this so-called little voice. And eventually, obviously, the little man went away.

But I still tried to search for and find that little voice in times where I felt lost. Applying the butterfly effects principles and philosophy to my own life allowed the little voice to be more amplified than ever, and I could hear and feel what I really wanted. The butterfly effect saved me from days of misery, trapped and stuck inside my own head.

And I sincerely hope it can do the same thing for some of you guys here today. Thank you so much.