The Overthinker’s Guide to Getting Unstuck

Welcome to The Overthinker’s Guide to Getting Unstuck, a choose-your-own-adventure game where every decision leads to either your soul’s liberation or entrapment.

To start playing, scroll to passage A.

PASSAGE A

Your journey begins in the middle of Nowhere. You’ve been here for a week, taking refuge in an old church and sitting in the airless silence of your own thoughts. 

Technically you’ve booked the place for one more night, but everyone is ready to leave. You could send your travel companions home. You could stay here and have a solo retreat. You could – except you’re not sure you’d be able to handle so much quiet.

Plus, there’s at least one ghost. According to the guestbook, a woman looks down from the choir loft at night, like she’s expecting someone. You haven’t seen her, but this explains the middle-of-the-night thumps that have kept you awake all week. 

You’re ready to escape, but it’s a long way back to civilization — and unfortunately, the buses out of here aren’t running today. What do you do? 

• To call a cab, go to passage B
• To walk to the nearest train station, go to passage C

PASSAGE B

You call three cab services, and none of them will take you. Two even hang up when you say you’re in Nowhere. Nobody wants to get stuck here, so what do you do now? 

• I guess I’ll start walking. Go to passage C
• To get spiritual guidance, go to passage S

PASSAGE C

The walk is three hours and even longer if you’ve got baggage, which of course you do. 

Your backpack digs into your shoulders, and the birds, in their carrier, squawk and flutter. They’re difficult to carry – not just now, but always. At home their constant chatter is endless and grating. Maybe it would be easier if they just . . . flew away? 

At the train station, take apart your whole backpack just to find your wallet and show your ID. Hopefully everything makes it back in the bag. You’re so ready to get back to civilization, but when your train reaches Berlin, a funny thing happens. You are here, back in your home, but you’re not sure you want to be here. All around, trains are leaving for Budapest, Copenhagen, the middle of everything, the beginning of nowhere — and suddenly, you have an overwhelming urge to abandon it all and take whatever train leaves next.

• To go on a mystery adventure, go to passage E
• To leave the train station and go home, passage F

PASSAGE D 

Let’s be real, you wouldn’t do this. Not yet.

• To return to reality, go to passage F
• If you’ve had enough adventure, head to your final destination in passage U  

PASSAGE E

You can’t buy anything because this mystery trip is just a daydream…for now.

• To return to reality, go to passage F

PASSAGE F

At home, you put the birds in their cage, opening the window to give them fresh air and a view of the trees. The breeze filters through the window and you are at peace.  

But then, you spot something perched on a dark, twisted branch. His coat is sleek and dark, a mottled blend of grey and black that matches his curved, sharp beak. The talons are tense and poised, ready to strike, and its pupils bulge in spheres of gold, focused on what it’s determined to have – your birds through the open window.

Falcons are apex predators. They dive-bomb their prey with precision, reaching speeds of 390 kilometers per hour. The chicken-wire cage around the parakeets is barely an obstacle for the falcon, who could tear right through it. 

• If you close the window and protect your parakeets, go to passage G
• If you leave the window open and let nature unfold, go to passage D 
• If you google the spiritual meaning of falcons, go to passage H

PASSAGE G

When you close the window, your birds start their sharp, repetitive squawking. That means they’re annoyed at you for closing the window. They don’t give a damn that you just saved their lives. They don’t thank you for their new toys, bigger cage or fresh food. They don’t even want to be close to you. Is this what parenting is like? Who can even see the Motherland on these maps of Nowhere and Lost where the vast terrain is uncertain and the paths are both narrow and endless. Where do you even go next? 

• To look for a sign, go to passage H
• To ruminate about the future, go to passage I
• To ruminate about the present, go to passage J 
• To ruminate about the past, go to passage K 
• To decide you’re done ruminating, go to passage Q

My nemesis 

PASSAGE H

• To get motivated by the falcon to sharpen your focus, go to passage R

PASSAGE I

Brush your teeth while you ruminate about possible future lives. You are hiking through Norway. You are living in a tent. The birds are with you in a travel carrier. No, maybe they’re with a friend. Or maybe they’re in a sanctuary. Maybe you couldn’t give them the best life. Spit and with it, goes Norway. You should stay here in your apartment. Learn how to fix what’s broken. Ride your bike to a job where everyone leaves at 5pm. You’d hate that. Spit. What about a seaside town where boredom stretches longer than siestas. If you need some excitement, you can always go back to America. Are you kidding? You can never go back to America. That’s not your home. anymore. You’re so adamant about this you don’t notice your gums are bleeding. 

• To return to the present, go to passage G 

PASSAGE J 

You can’t ruminate about the present.  

• Yes you can. Go to passage G.
• I know you can’t. Just wanted to see what’s here. Go to passage R
• To break out of this cycle and do something spontaneous, go to passage Q

PASSAGE K

Welcome back to the middle of Nowhere. You’re taking refuge in an old church. Are you frustrated to be here again? Bet you wish you chose another passage. You can’t undo the past, but you can always make choices that land you back in the same place. 

The ghosts are still lurking around here, and it’s a long way home. The one bus that could get you out of here still isn’t running. What do you do?

• To call a cab, go to passage B 
• To walk to the nearest train station, go to passage C 
• To take a deep breath, go to passage L 
• Oh my gosh, I’m so lost! Help me! go to passage L

PASSAGE L

Breathe in and let the air fill your lungs. Those two balloons have carried you everywhere, and you’ve always held them close. 

With ease, breathe out. Notice the atmosphere, how it touches your skin. What temperature is it? Is it warm? Is it cool? Feel your tongue move across your teeth. What does it taste like? What do you notice? Can you feel your heart in your palm?

What’s that sound? The smallest one, in the distance. Is it a hum or a buzz or click or a skip? Is it smack or a whack or slap or a snap? Listen closely, you have time.

• Let’s wrap this story up. Go to passage U
• Let’s see something beautiful. Go to passage Q 
• Let’s get distracted. Go to passage M

PASSAGE M

Hi there, thanks for tuning into Distract Yourself, the show where you start a late night project with no plan or purpose. This time you’re decluttering the house. Throw everything out! Don’t look twice! Let’s get started because you probably won’t finish. 

• To go down a random googling hole, click here – but please come back : )
• To take a break, go to passage O
• To see what happens after the break, go to passage N

PASSAGE N 

Time to panic! Your ID has vanished. It just ran away like a thief. Look everywhere. Clutter up your decluttered house with clutter as you tear the whole place apart. No ID. Take it out on a loved one. Feel like a jerk. Cry. Google something. Cry again. 

After hours of searching, you realize there’s one place left to look. Somewhere you really don’t want to go – but you have to. So you go downstairs and open one of the heavy, oversized dumpsters with flies buzzing around heaps of diapers, bills, expired meat and something sticky on your hand. And as you dig through your own trash bags, you keep hoping that you won’t somehow get stuck, like that woman who prank-called a bar and pretended to be stuck in their dumpster. The only difference being that she was kidding about being inside the dumpster and you’re actually here.  

So you’re here, rifling around for your identity, and sure enough, you come face to face with yourself, right under a plastic bag, dripping some mysterious, sour smell.

Yay. You found your ID. That was a close one. But something feels off. It’s peaceful now. Eerily Peaceful. Guess it’s time to find something else to overthink.

• To ruminate about the past, go to passage T
• To do something good for yourself, go to passage O
• To wonder if you should have stayed an extra day in Nowhere, scroll up and start this story from the beginning (but do you really want to do that?) 

PASSAGE O

You know what to do.

• To distract yourself from this exercise, go to passage N 
• To stay present, go to passage P 

PASSAGE P 

• To see the world, go to passage R
• To see something beautiful, go to passage Q 
• To get your fortune told, go to passage S  

PASSAGE Q

Welcome to a remote island off the coast of Iceland. 

As the story goes, every year in late August, baby puffins – also known as pufflings – emerge from their burrows. With their parents gone, it’s time for them to take flight.

Most don’t do very well. They end up crashing into the streets of the nearby fishing town, where every year, the townspeople go out to search for and rescue baby birds. 

You can go to Iceland and see this yourself. You can watch from a distance and never know the weight of a baby puffin in your hands. You can forget you ever heard about Puffling Season. Whatever you choose, life keeps happening. Pufflings keep failing to fly. People keep saving them. The present is ongoing, so while you’re here, be here.

• For one more lesson, go to passage R
• That’s enough lessons for me. Go to passage U

PASSAGE R 

Look outside. Notice the world. Don’t do anything else for one minute. 

• Go to passage U

PASSAGE S

• To see something new, go to passage R
• To see something beautiful, go to passage Q
• To reach your final destination, go to passage U

PASSAGE T 

You want to talk about the past? Fine. But let’s start at least 50 million years ago. 

https://dinosaurpictures.org/ancient-earth#50

• Take me to the end. Go to passage U
• Take me to the beginning. Go to passage A 
• Take me to the middle. Go to passage J

PASSAGE U 

However you got here is the way you were meant to arrive. Maybe you saw some baby birds. Maybe you had good fortune, or you might have fallen into a dumpster. It doesn’t matter how long it took or which way you went. What counts is how you moved through the twists and turns, what choices you made when you encountered something that resembled a grave but wasn’t one at all. Remember, it’s never too late (even now!) to change course. Your final destination will always be there, waiting for you. Every breath brings you closer and closer until finally, you’ll reach the end.