I’VE never been known as an emotional guy, so take this entire thing with a gigantic grain of salt. However, this past year has taught me (and is continuing to teach me) that emotion and motivation can be highly overrated.
Let me backtrack a bit. I’m sure the good Lord put us on this earth equipped with emotions in order to make our existence more than a little bearable.
For sure, the elation when one’s sports team wins and the agony one feels at heartbreak (or when one cannot get a doughnut) are both experiences that separate us from robots and computers.
It is emotion that allows us to feel empathy for others and try to make their lives a little bit more bearable.
However, the downside to this is when emotion (like motivation, covered in a previous article) threatens to drown you in a sea of immobility. As a disclaimer, this is not a potshot at anyone suffering from clinical depression. I am not, and have no plans to, become a clinical psychologist. The people I am addressing this admonition to are the “emotion junkies.”
Who do I mean? You hear a message exhorting you to give to the poor. It moves you to tears, and for the first month or so you are the ultimate paragon of giving.
But then a day comes when that emotional “high” no longer comes. Along with that is a drop-off in giving—until it stops altogether. You then move on to the next “sermon” that moves you to tears... you get what I mean.
And what about the times when your emotions are telling you to do the opposite of what your mind tells you? Sure, there are success stories about leaps of faith, but the opposite end of the spectrum also begs reconsideration.
When you’re tired of trying to drag on a relationship, does it make sense to end it right away? Any long-term couple will tell you to not let emotions get in the way and use rationality to try to fix that problem. It leads me back to the saying “Warm Body, Cold Mind,” which I found over YouTube. The premise is that your body is primed for whatever changes happen, but your mind should be “cold” enough to come up with a premeditated response as opposed to a knee-jerk reaction.
As with motivation, we can’t let emotions dictate the way we live. Let’s not forget that what feels right may not be what is right. Eat your veggies, even if you want to have that doughnut. Try to be nice, even when being snarky and lashing out feels better (speaking to myself here).
Let’s do our best to not divorce emotion from reason—a marriage made in heaven if I may say so myself.