It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and
  then to loosen up. Inevitably though, one thought led to another, and
  soon I was more than just a social thinker.

  I began to think alone - "to relax," I told myself - but I knew it wasn't
  true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I
  was thinking all the time.

  I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't
  mix, but I couldn't stop myself.

  I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and
  Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What
  is it exactly we are doing here?"

  Things weren't going so great at home either. One evening I had turned
  off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that
  night at her mother's.

  I soon had a reputation as a heavy thinker. One day the boss called me
  in. He said, "Skippy, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your
  thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the
  job, you'll have to find another job." This gave me a lot to think about.

  I came home early after my conversation with the boss. "Honey," I
  confessed, "I've been thinking..."

  "I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!"

  "But Honey, surely it's not that serious."

  "It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as
  college professors, and college professors don't make any money, so if
  you keep on thinking we won't have any money!"

  "That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently, and she began to cry. I'd
  had enough. "I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the
  door.

  I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche, with a PBS
  station on the radio. I roared into the parking lot and ran up to the big
  glass doors... they didn't open. The library was closed.

  To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that
  night.

  As I sank to the ground clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for
  Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining
  your life?" it asked. You probably recognize that line. It comes from
  the standard Thinker's Anonymous poster.

  Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a
  TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last
  week it was "Porky's." Then we share experiences about how we
  avoided thinking since the last meeting.

  I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just
  seemed... easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.
 

 Unknown Author