When to indulge your emotions and when to ignore them
Only someone who has ever been called “sensitive” in their life can relate to the irritation and anger that word can inspire when the word is launched at you. Our emotions can be like tyrants, they can reign over us and be constant enemies, whether we indulge them or suffocate them. Men and women equally are repeatedly told that their emotions are an impediment to their success in life.
If only you could overcome your emotions then you could think logically! Achieve your goals! After all, are they not your emotions that cause you to indulge in junk food when you ought to be eating healthily? Are they not your emotions that cause you to keep relationships that you ought to cut off? Are they not your emotions that cause you to procrastinate rather than do the work that you ought to be doing?
But the people who feel may be the most human among us. Automatons who can function on reason and reason alone, unimpeded by anger, longing, despair and excitement, what do they function for? What is their end goal? What drives them? Duty and obligation can only take us so far and if they take us to the end of life itself, what a dry and colourless life that would be.
Perhaps there is some crucial information that our emotions have to tell us. Like every bodily signal, these too serves some purpose. There are three main areas in life where our emotions and our logic are often at odds with each other and finding the balance is important. These are: matters of the body, matters of relationships and matters of the mind.
In each of these domains, indulging too much in the emotions can be catastrophic whereas neglecting them completely would comprise a fundamental mistake in the pursuit of living a good life that suits your spirit rather than crushes it. I discuss each of these domains in detail in this essay and explain the contexts in which the emotions must be indulged and in which ones they must be ignored in order to live a truly balanced life.
“But without scheming to do wrong, or to make others unhappy, there may be error, and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness, want of attention to other people's feelings, and want of resolution, will do the business.”
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
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