Why I: Write Too Much

Taking a more relaxed stance on writing, I’ve decided to just write about common concepts I encounter in everyday life.

Namely, my habits.

On a daily basis, people wonder why I do the things I do, and unfortunately, they draw to conclusions before they even ask me. Once I find out they have made their assumptions (which are almost always wrong), I usually just pass it off, because why should I bother?

Frankly, it’s quite rude to make assumptions in the first place. But we do it anyway. We have all made assumptions about one another at least once in our lives, yet most of those assumptions get left unsaid and forgotten.

Those assumptions become reality and we leave it behind with words unsaid.

Therefore, why not just say it? Why not just ask, instead of creating false character traits?

This is my way of showing that. I will go over some of the things people assume about me because I’ve never explained them before. That starts with the question I get asked pretty much every single day.

“Why do you write so much?”

If you know me or have read my previous articles, you would know that I have the tendency to continuously pour out thousands of words for a single article. As of writing this article, my longest takes 12 minutes to read.

Now, people’s presumptions of why I write this long has always been the same:

I’m showing off.

Or…

I’m trying too hard.

I completely see why people would think this way about me because I may come across that way when I write or even talk for long periods of time. It just makes sense for us to think that someone would be the type of person to exhibit these stereotypical attributes if they just so happen to correlate in the slightest of ways.

I don’t think of it as insulting when people say these things, because I know it’s very surface-level thinking. They just believe the first thing that comes to one’s head in that sort of situation and don’t actually give it much thought. It happens to match up so it has to be that way.

However, and I will be honest, I don’t exactly disagree with those statements. I see them in a different light, but I don’t disagree.

Before I begin, I usually pass writing too much by saying that it was an accident. People don’t believe me when I say it, but yes, I accidentally write too much.

For those of you who are like me and write too much, you may not think about why you may be accidentally doing this too. Just as a heads up, these are my reasons and they may not be the same as yours.

For those of you who may not understand why I and many others accidentally write too much, hello. Thank you for keeping an open mind.

First of all, I am really worried about people not understanding what I am trying to say. When writing, I tend to think I am not explaining things properly. That the reader won’t get the main idea somehow. Because of this, I try to purposefully add more detail to be sure that the readers will understand. So, yes, it may seem like I am trying too hard but, in a different way that one may think.

Second, I do not put a lot of thought into turning my thoughts into words. That may not make sense in the slightest and wow is it hypocritical, but think of it this way. People write by translating their thoughts into comprehensible words. Where you are supposed to translate, I somehow literally turn my thoughts into words instead of translating the continuous thoughts in my head into a single stream, as you would do normally.

Lastly, and I am sure you could tell by the last point, I think a lot. I am one of those people who think about everything in complete detail for no reason whatsoever other than the fact that I have made it a habit. Good at some points, but bad in others.

The thing is, I don’t want to stop this habit because it has more good than bad. Unfortunately, one of the downsides happens to be that I spill all of my thoughts over every single detail when given something to write about. To be honest, that is really selfish. So, it’s not that I am showing off, but it is extremely selfish. It’s as if I am taking advantage of your time by making you read more than you really should.

But, thankfully, I’ve been making progress in getting myself to write less. This article could have been over a thousand words but it’s surprisingly less. I’ve started to get comments saying I haven’t written enough detail instead of too much (which is rather sad, to be honest.)

It takes work to overcome bad habits, but I hope this sheds light on why people may act the way they do. People always do things for a reason, whether consciously or subconsciously; which is an article for another day.

If we were all to be a bit more lenient in making assumptions, we would be able to understand more about one another and ourselves. And hopefully, this ‘less than 900-word’ article can help that in some way.