what are you thinking?
Yesterday I was driving home, in silence, and began to take notice of other drivers and people walking. Given just a few seconds in passing, it is difficult to ascertain how that person might be feeling — or what they are thinking. You don’t get much in the way of facial expressions or body language clues.
Was it a good day? Are they worried about something? Mentally running through a task list? Saying a prayer? Starring in a movie in their head?
I passed a lot of people — driving in the opposite direction, turning in front of me at a stoplight, walking or riding their bike across the crosswalk. That’s a lot of potential thinking going on. This got me wondering about how much thought power is happening around me.
How often we think seems to be a point of contention in the scientific community, but a 2020 research study suggests that we have approximately 6200 thoughts per day . That seems low to me, but I'm going with it.
That calculates out to be about four thoughts per minute, or seven hundredths of a thought per second. This is based on a full twenty-four hours. I haven’t figured out how sleep and dreams factor into this analysis. All I know is that on my ten minute drive home, I passed a lot of thoughts.
Now, if you could filter all of those thoughts, how would they break down. Positive versus negative? Happiness versus sadness? Worry versus calm?
What would be the collective weight of all that thinking?
Perhaps this notion of unknown thoughts is the reason for the popularity of the quote:
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.
Maybe not everyone is "in the battle," but I bet it’s a decent percentage.