Ways of Knowing - Emotion

Robert Ebert said, 'your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.' But can emotions mislead us? And can other people help us to recognize emotions that we didn't realize we had?

Emotions come freely to us. They are our feelings and the reason of expression. If we are happy about something, it is our emotions, and we reflect this in different ways. Similarly, if we are hurt, then sadness becomes our emotion, and we reflect plain stress or it comes out in the form of tears.

Many times we need to make decisions that need two views  - a reason and an emotion. At some instances, we are in a fix because we are unsure about whether reason or emotion is the right way out of the problem.

I have often been told that I should think more rationally. According to people, I am someone who bases most of my decisions on emotions rather than reason. It takes me an effort to find reasons and nothing to find emotions that are reflected or affected by a certain decision.

As I am planning to pursue Business and Management later in my life, it is very important for me to start learning the art of making ‘reason’ decisions.

They often say, that in terms of business, the mind must always rule over the heart. I believe that this is little difficult because if the mind rules it may make decisions that will hurt the hearts of others who are being affected by this ‘reason’ decision. If we are supposed to take a decision regarding what kind of an investment to choose for your business, you cannot base it on emotions like ‘it is good for the people of the investing company; it is my cousins – he needs help’. It needs to be thought of with reason – why this company, what benefits will we gain, etc.

However, sometimes we start thinking more emotionally, like I do. Certain problems like those in schools (peer pressure) would lead people into taking more emotional decision.

A clear example of an emotion misleading us would be those cases of jealousy, hatred and fear. In school, for example, due to bullying or ‘teenage love’ problems, students take huge leaps. The peer pressure cannot be handled. Instead of finding a reason and a way to challenge, people may take threatening decision – suicide, for example. At these moments, we realise that emotions can lead us into doing something highly threatening.

Similarly, in the business case, if we think emotionally and invest into a friend or relative’s firm, knowing that there is not much scope, we are hurting ourself economically. This could later lead to many miscalculations and financial difficulties.

The emotion of jealousy can tear the best of friendships, apart. Instead of reasoning or thinking whether your friend is doing something deliberately, if in case of getting much better marks (naturally or hard work), we often tend to get jealous. This jealousy leads to us to spoiling the lives of these friends.

If these emotions are not controlled, they can lead to many disastrous situations where a person looses the sense to think with a reason as suggested by  Damasio. When emotions take over, they can lead us to take better decisions or they can mislead us into taking decisions that can have a worse long term effect.

The long-term effect is not only caused by the emotion but also by other people, the outside world. For example, if we are angry with a best friend of ours and another person who is possibly jealous of our friendship, will try and enforce the wrong feelings of vengeance into us, which can lead us to do something that would cause further hatred between our friend and us. The other friend, being nice, could also try and solve the matter by making us think about the beautiful moments spent with the best friend – emotional. That would lead us to realise our mistake, feel ashamed.

So yes, other people can lead us to experience feelings that we have never realised. Many times it is our parents or family members that make us feel better in times of depression. They change our moods and leave feeling a different emotion altogether.