Brendan Kane uses Voltaire's idea that doubt is uncomfortable and certainty is absurd to explain overthinking. When you're stuck gathering endless information and procrastinating instead of moving toward your goal, you're avoiding the unknown, not making better decisions.
Here's how you know you're overthinking. There's a simple rule from Voltaire who said, "Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is absurd." And what he meant is that you're never going to feel 100% sure about anything, but overthinking convinces you that you should. So you start procrastinating, you start delaying really easy decisions, you look for one more piece of information, one more sign, and you keep repeating this until you lose sight of the original goal. It feels like you're being careful, but really you're just trying to avoid the unknown.
