I watched a video on Instagram and this creator was saying that these days, it’s hard to tell if your thoughts are yours or if they’re someone else’s.
She continued to talk about how our thoughts are influenced by social media and other people to the point that we lack our own original ones. She gave an example of how one can be watching a video, but you immediately scroll down to the comment section, and there it is. Someone has already said exactly what you were thinking… or even worse, something that sounds better than what you were thinking. And suddenly, that becomes your opinion. We don’t wait to think for ourselves and come up with our own perspective. Even as different as it may be.
And I agreed with her. Sometimes, a perspective is already forming in my mind, but the moment I see a comment that aligns with it, or even challenges it in a convincing way, I adopt it. I let it settle in as mine, without questioning whether I would have arrived there on my own.
And it made me think of ChatGPT and other AI tools that a lot of us use to discuss our emotions.
I use ChatGPT in my daily life, and there was this time I was trying to process something, and I wanted closure. Yes, I do journal and pour out my emotions, but at that time I wanted to know what action I could take, so I turned to ChatGPT.
I really, really wanted to talk to this person so that I could get the closure I wanted. So that I’m not dragged into the same loop of thinking and overthinking and the many what-ifs.
So I asked ChatGPT what I could do about it. But in my mind, I already knew what I wanted. I wanted to talk to him. Still, I asked for a second opinion.
ChatGPT told me that I shouldn’t do that. That I shouldn’t ask for closure, that I should walk away in silence. But the silence was gnawing at me. If I asked for closure, I’d lose my aura, I’d lose my mystery. I’d look like I’m begging him, and I’d be opening an emotional wound.
And at one point, I agreed with the bot. I didn’t want to look like I was begging.
So I followed the advice for a couple of days. But at the same time, I was feeling uneasy. I felt like I had the power to do something, and I wasn’t doing it because of a bot.
So I said, forget it. I’ll look for the closure I want, maybe then this endless thinking will all come to an end.
I looked for him personally and asked to talk. And I won’t lie, it went better than I expected. We talked. All the endless questions were answered. And then I felt calm. Like finally, I got what I wanted.
Reflecting back, I asked myself: why was I influenced by a chatbot? Something that doesn’t even have feelings or understand what I was going through or what I wanted? Why was it so easy, even when I knew what I wanted, to be influenced like that?
It made me think that I might be losing my independence when it comes to thinking.
Building Independent Thinking
So, back to the creator, she mentioned that being an independent thinker is like a muscle that you’re training. We need to sit with the information for a while, then build on it. That way, you’d have formed an original opinion or feedback. Because if you don’t, you start relying on everything else: comments, opinions, AI, and people to tell you what to think, what to feel, and what to do.
Like in my case, I sat with my feelings, journaled, and came to the conclusion that I needed to talk to him and get the closure I wanted. And although I did that, something external got to my thoughts before I did anything. We’ve gotten so used to immediate input; comments, opinions, advice, AI responses that we don’t give ourselves time to sit with our own thoughts. We don’t let them develop. We don’t even trust them enough to act on them.
So sit with your thoughts and your raw reactions, the discomfort, and the uncertainty. Maybe we need to pause before scrolling to the comments, before asking for advice, and before outsourcing our decisions.
Because even if your perspective is messy, incomplete, or different, it’s yours. Understand what you need to do before anything else gets to them—the internet, people around you, or AI bots.
