In every big city I've lived in, I’ve come across people who talk to themselves. I’ll be sitting on a bus and hear someone start a loud conversation and my first thought is that it’s a loud obnoxious phone call, or maybe it’s two friends having a lively conversation – but after a quick glance I realize that it’s just one person having have a solo conversation. I’ve seen this on the city streets as well, someone will walk past me muttering to themselves or start shouting at unseen people. Their eyes are glazed over and it’s like they are on a different planet. They are lost within themselves and have disconnected from everyone around them.

The only difference between the talker and everyone else sitting quietly on the bus trying to ignore the “crazy” guy is that the quiet people's dialogue is INTERNAL vs EXTERNAL. Everyone out there has a similar chatterbox going on inside their head. Conversations like “I have to reply to that email today”, “I thought that was rude!”, “I shouldn’t have lost my temper this morning (sigh)” “I love her”, “I’m hungry”, “I should’ve answered that question differently”,  “Why didn’t he text back”, “I hope the test results come back okay,” “When is the package arriving?”, “I need to workout tonight”, "I feel good", "I feel shit" etc.

Imagine if everyone’s INTERNAL dialogue was EXTERNAL. It would be a noisy bus ride. If that’s the only difference between the crazy / angry guy on the bus then who is really crazy?

The mind is a playful monkey. From time to time you have to catch yourself from being sucked into an internal dialogue with yourself. Calm the monkey with a few deep breaths, get out of your head and get into the moment.