[This post is excerpted from Why Smart Teens Hurt. To learn more, please take a look!]
In this post, I want to present you with the idea that there are two kinds of obsessions, productive ones and unproductive ones, and that while the second are terrible, the first are rather wonderful.
Unproductive obsessions rob of us intellectual power, squander our time and our energy, and hijack our brain. Productive obsessions, by contrast, are the way that our brain dives into something worth thinking deeply about. You do not want unproductive obsessions. You do want productive obsessions. There is a world of difference between them.
Rather than thinking about a million things, which amounts to thinking about nothing, and maintaining only a low-level interest in and enthusiasm about life, a smart teen might announce to her brain that she has a fine use for it and that she intends to move it to a higher gear. It is an engine meant to perform in that higher gear and, having been waiting for her invitation, it might just respond beautifully.
Most of our obsessions are not of our own choosing and do not serve us. They are unproductive and harmful. They arise because we are anxious creatures and our unproductive thoughts cycle repeatedly to the beat of that anxiety. Against our will, we unproductively obsess about what a friend said, about catching a dreaded disease, about failing our next test. We unproductively obsess about things that we want to happen, like being chosen for the English prize, and about things that we don’t want to happen, like getting pimples. Our mind, which ought to be ours, is stolen away by anxiety thieves.
The culture applauds this brain abdication. The culture needs you to care about the latest movie, the latest gadget, the latest sermon, the latest investment opportunity. Every aspect of the culture has something to sell you and is looking to grab your attention. Marketers do not want you to be thinking too deeply about your budding symphony or your scientific research and miss their sales pitch. What if you didn’t check your email every few minutes? What good would their banner ads do? Your productive obsessions—your brainstorms—are dollars out of their pockets.
For parents
Unproductive obsessions, and the compulsive behaviors associated with them, do not serve us. They waste our precious time, occupy our finite neurons, robbing us of their availability, and pressure us to behave compulsively in ways that amount to further self-disservice. Anxiety fuels these obsessions and the effort to relieve our anxiety leads us to pointless, questionable, or dangerous behaviors intended to quiet our nerves and banish the anxiety.
Our own nervous system puts us under enormous pressure and produces all sorts of unhappy effects in addition to our unproductive obsessing. We become hyper-vigilant, easily startled, prone to opportunistic illnesses, unable to sleep, easily fatigued. Anxiety throws us a party of problems, with unproductive obsessions the guest of honor. You do not want this for yourself and you do not want this for your teen.
But think about the distinction I am making between unproductive obsessions and productive ones. How could anything great or large be dreamed into existence without someone thinking long and hard about it? You might have a profitable conversation with your teen about this distinction. Just bat it around and see what the two of you think. It might make for one of your more valuable and interesting chats. And, who knows, the chat might serve you just as much as it serves your smart teen.
For teens
People waste their brains. They allow themselves to worry about next to nothing, wasting neurons. They allow themselves to grow numb with distractions, wasting neurons. Because they have not trained themselves to aim their brain in the direction of rich and rewarding ideas, ideas worth the wholesale enlistment of neurons, they stay mired in the brain equivalent of a rat race, their brain spending its neuronal capital on spinning hamster wheels.
Try not to let this happen to you.
Productive obsessions, by contrast, are wonderful. Scientific obsessions lead to vaccines. Artistic obsessions lead to symphonies. Humanitarian obsessions lead to freedom and justice. Productive obsessions are our lifeblood, both for the individual and for all of humanity. We should not fear them simply because they put us under unwonted pressure, give a compulsive edge to our behaviors, or in other ways discomfort us and threaten us. Rather, we should learn how to encourage them and manage them.
It is up to you whether you will dumb yourself down or smarten yourself up. If you opt to smarten yourself up by cultivating rich ideas that have weight and worth, you will get to make meaning in ways that few people experience. The person next to you may think that the epitome of brain powering is a sharp game of bridge or a rousing fight with a crossword puzzle. I hope that you agree that real brain power is the holding of a rich idea over time as you productively obsess your novel into existence, build your remarkable business, or aid in the understanding of some profound scientific puzzle. These productive obsessions could be coming!
You can learn to opt for brainstorms, for big thinking over time, and by doing that you will fulfill your promise—and your promises to yourself. An idea for a novel sparks your imagination and, because you let it, it turns into a brainstorm. An idea for an Internet business wakes you up in the middle of the night and, because you let it in, it turns into a brainstorm. A problem in science grips you and, because you let it, it turns into a brainstorm. A brainstorm is the full activation of your neuronal forces, an activation in support of an idea that you intend to cherish and to elaborate, so powerful an activation that it amounts to a productive obsession.
Unproductive obsessions, no way. Productive obsessions, yes! Take a little time and consider this distinction.
[This post is excerpted from Why Smart Teens Hurt. To learn more, please take a look!]
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
