Rational Or Irrational ?
That’s The Question
In this article I will deepen down :
- What is and how it looks to be rational and irrational ?
- Why do you have to master your emotions ?
- How early childhood can be one of inflaming factors toward our irrationally ?
- How can we try to defend from it ?
Without further ado, let’s jump right into it !
Rationallity has always been a tough skill to learn in life.
But for me it’s one of the most valuable one, why ?
Because it shows your true skillset and intelligence at the same time.
Nothing will interupt you at your best, you are basically invincible.
And the irrational side.
Well to compare it the best we can use an example of adult and a child.
Adult — intelligent, reasonable, responsible, experienced and wise
Child — funny, pleassure, unreasonable, lack of knowledge
You’re probably thinking that you have to choose one or another, and you can’t be two of them at the same time.
The ancient Greeks wouldn’t agree with that one, because they were using different metaphor to that specific.
Imagine your mind as a horse and a horse rider.
Now, the horse is your irrational side let’s say which has the great power, because of his energy, force, wildness, has a lot of interest in predators (I’ll explain later) and always gets into trouble.
Rider is our rational side or thinking self.
He is the one who holds the reins and steere the horse, transforming his tremendous energy into something productive.
Without each other they’re completelly useless.
To most of the people dominant position has the horse and the rider is weak, and can’t guide him correctly.
To some individuals might be different the rider is holding the reins so tight so the horse can’t unleash his true power.
What can we do with this comparison and how can we use it in life ?
The ancient Greeks knew that if we can control the uncontrolled, we would be unstoppable.
The horse can be controlled, and it’s in our self-interest to do that.
Your decision making will be sharpened.
You won’t fall into some manipulation.
People will respect you more based on your intelligence.
You will accept your past as something which happened, and that can’t change your point of view on present.
With these statement I want to stay a little bit, because it’s crucial when it comes to be rational.
You see at the early childhood, we are the most sensitive and defenseless.
All of the bad and good experiences, we had during our childhood left a deep wound in our memory.
After your brain realizes it, this will release a strong chemical substances called hormones.
For instance, let’s say you have a mother named Julie and a son named Jon.(Not a real persons by the way)
After some time, there’s new child in the family Thomas, yay congrats.
Because of that, Jon doesn’t get that much attention from Julie any more.
What can he conclude from it ?
She is rejecting me, so somehow I’m not worth her love.
DISCLAIMER — Every brain works different, some of us could conclude something else but for narcissictic mothers or for mothers which takes care only for one child, the scenario for it likes to repeat.
The wound continous to grow, after some time Jon founds his first girlfriend let’s say Marie.
Marie wants the best for Jon and for his and her happiness in relationship, like a wise person she doesn’t give up on people because she found a diamond blemish.
So Marie found something, which she don’t especially like in Jon and she wants to have a normal, healthy conversation on solving this problem.
Jon acted with furious and uncontrolled anger because he thought that Marie wanted to leave him, even though she doesn’t say or thought a single thing about it.
That’s the moment when the wound in your memory acted.
Ending the story, luckily Marie knew how early childhood can affect your decision-making and how controlling your emotions can be difficult with that kind of experiences in life overall.
What can we conclude from this story.
We have to understand 1 thing, so that type of situations won’t happen to us in future.
- We misread the present and react to something based on the past.
That’s a big danger for all of us. In our story Jon misread the present probably two times.
First one when he thought that he doesn’t deserve love from his mother (Julie), because she didn’t give him full of her attention she kind of seperated it between 2 kids (Jon and Thomas).
Now this situation only started the wound to expand more, so he didn’t react in any way because as we said earlier he was only a kid, he was defenseless and sensitive.
Second one when he misread the present was already a reaction based on the past, but Jon completely misread Marie intentions with him.
How can we try to defend from it ?
There is no easy psychological trick you can do for your mind to just not care about the past and the wounds will close themselves like in a moment.
When the “attack” comes you have to stay as focused as you can, even though the emotions you’ll feel wants you to do something different.
YOU CAN’T FALL INTO THIS TRAP.
Seperate emotions, which we experience and try to think of what can be a possible source of this (it doesn’t have to be only about wounds from the past, keep it in mind).
This deep understanding of ourselves and our weak points is a key element on a way of becoming rationalists.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed ❤
Anyway right now I make some changes on my schedule and I won’t be able to post 2 times in a week, so right now I can only keep up with 1 article per week.
I hope you don’t mind this change, I’ll still try to write as consise and fulfilling as I can be.
Stay safe, be good and enjoy !
