Can Emotions Create Disaster?

We all go through some sort of emotional trauma in our lives, some worse than others. The most common is dealing with love.

As with anything, I try to derive lessons from my experiences, no matter how painful. I noticed a common theme when it came to some of my most painful experiences. It’s the use of emotion and intellect. As humans, we are very emotional creatures. This results in us making a lot of decisions based on emotion, not intellect. It can be the cause of most heartache.

Emotional decisions are very irrational, we tend to not think about the future consequences of our actions, we simply think of the moment. These emotions drive our desire and our wants. In most faiths, it is mentioned that the devil and his army, whispers into the hearts of mankind. The heart; the place where most of us make decisions on a daily basis. For example, what do I feel to eat, what do I want to do, what pleases me. We rarely think about the consequences of these simple actions.

Then, there’s intellect. It’s what rectifies our daily emotions. It helps us to consider consequences of each action. It makes us think of the future, rather than just the present. It’s the part of you that says, I need to eat vegetables because it will give me nutrients, I need to study so I can pass my test, I need to focus on building meaningful relationships. This is the thought process that most of us neglect. It’s the boring, but necessary stuff that fuels growth in life.

I’m not saying we have to be devoid of emotion, I’m saying we have to learn how to use both. When you get that overwhelming emotional feeling or desire, we need to think about what it leads to and how it benefits us in the future. Allow your intellect to help you make intelligent decisions that verify or negate your emotions.

Most relationships are ruined because of rash emotional decisions. We take a bad moment and bad feeling and allow it to define our future. We don’t take everything into consideration because we are blinded by that rush of emotion. It’s common for people to say that they just want to live their lives how they want and do what pleases them. Not thinking about what that actually means. Both are very emotional statements. The goal of those statements is to achieve happiness, something that we think comes from following our every desire. But, desires are temporary, once it’s satisfied, we are left with the consequence, positive or negative. I’m not saying all desires are bad, I’m saying we have to use our intellect to decide which is and which isn’t. Most emotions blind us from looking at the bigger picture–the future. You may be unsure of a situation or a person because of your emotions, but apply your intellect to look at the bigger picture, you will see how quickly things become clear.

Can we overthink things? Of course, but with everything in life, we need to establish a healthy balance.