Cognitive Distortions

The name is clinical; the things themselves are familiar neighbours. All-or-nothing thinking. Catastrophizing. Mind-reading. Fortune-telling. You have met them all at three in the morning.

Notice what they have in common: each is a shortcut that once saved time. The mind, pressed for speed, trades accuracy for pattern — and the pattern hardens. "I failed this exam" becomes "I always fail everything." One missed call becomes "nobody cares." The shortcut becomes the road.

The countermove is not positive thinking, which is just another shortcut. It is exact thinking. Take the sentence the mind offers and audit it like an invoice: what is the evidence? Is "always" true even once? What would you tell a friend holding this same thought?

A distortion survives on vagueness. Written down, itemized, and examined in daylight, most of them cannot stand. That is why the notebook outperforms the worrying.