Hi everyone,
I have been writing on the cognitive and emotional side of our stories of our own lives on my blog recently. So, I thought why not discuss it here.
The idea is that the mind and the heart tend to differ how they perceive the outside world. When the perception is through the mind, it goes through the filter of logic. What is logic? It is how we think the world works. When we say something is logical, we usually mean it is how we expect it to be based on what we have learnt about the world so far.
When the perception is through the heart, does it go through any filter? I am not sure. I can’t see any. But what I can see is that the story created by the heart tends to be blocked or manipulated by the mind. We listen to these stories through emotions. Let’s say that we feel like we like someone, but our mind might come up with many ‘logical explanations’ for why we should not like that person. His job, his background etc. Or we experience a minor problem, say an innocent misunderstanding between our boss and us, and then we might end up thinking that our boss hates us.
I tend to think that emotions are a better way to make decisions, because they seem purer to me. They seem unfiltered (unless we suppress them). I am not referring to just any emotion, though, as they change all the time. Emotions like ‘gut feelings’ or ‘intuitions’ or just very strongly felt ones are better guides than the mind. Believe me, I made many decisions based in such emotions and never regretted any.
I think the mind is a good decision-maker for everyday things because everyday emotions may not very good guides and because most everyday things need quick action (emotions are kind of slow). But for things related to my life in the long run (for example, what job do I want to have?), I prefer to go with how I feel. I will not evaluate a potential job position based on how much money I earn, how prestigious it is, but on whether I will like it or not. Of course, this is me speaking, as a person who does not need to feed any mouths.
Let me know what you think about decision-making based on logic or based on emotions. Are they mutually exclusive? In what ways is each helpful? Which one do you tend to use more when making decisions? Why? Let’s have a chat!