Of Analyzing Situations Objectively and Emotionally

Alright, this is my third post which is not technical, after "my introduction" and "Musings of the mind". This is again more of pondering over situations that life presents - mental grind of the sorts - and nothing technical. So you have been warned sufficiently that this is not a tech post and proceed to read the rest of the post at your own risk! I am also expecting quite a few flames!

Recently I spent some time with a old friend of mine and he is working through some issues. Talking to him made me think on this subject and hence this post.

I have often seen people telling others to think objectively in a structured manner and not emotionally/unorganized way to solve issues. The best part about this thought process is that most of us think objectively and in a structured logical fashion when we are dealing with problems at work or extraneous situations. Be it an Oracle apps issue, talking about promotion to your boss, changing jobs etc.. However, whenever presented with a problem associated to anything dear to ones heart, suddenly the objectivity, logic and structure in thinking seems to vanish. Most of us start thinking with our hearts - emotionally. The person starts addressing the problems in ways which defy "logic" to others.

In my life's experience, I have learnt that it is easy to ask someone to think objectively to address an issue close to heart - but the actual person who goes through it - will seldom be able to do it.

I think this is so because nothing is perfect in this world - not the thing/person close to your heart included. We have all the while focused on the positives/amiable aspects and held something/someone close to our heart and ignored everything else. Mind you, life is dynamic and when negatives start becoming predominant, we are no longer able to digest this. On many occasions, we hate to address such issues and procastinate acting on them because of a multitude of reasons - insecurity, societal issues, turbulence, grief... Mind just wants to believe that everything is ok. Howeverm when it reaches a breaking point, the issue can no longer be ignored, the person is stuck emotionally and loses all reasoning.

So it is easy to ask someone to think objectively, but when matters of heart hits us, we ourself lose our ability to think objectively/logically.

I dont have any solutions/suggestions here, but I think it certainly helps to "step into ones shoes" before being judgemental about others resolve, grit, ability to think rationally, deal with issues and so on..

Finally, everyone has something very very dear to heart - just that it differs from person to person. There may be "gifted" people with ability to think rationally and objectively in matters of heart, but from what I have seen in my life so far, they are a minority!

- Aravind Kamath Posral