The path to Tranquility (summer)
92. Combination of emotion and reason
Sensibility is our innate ability to survive, including intuition and
feelings. It causes us to have various emotions and drives us to act. Reason
is what we develop through study and practice. It makes us think and analyze
things and survive better. The emergence of sensibility precedes
rationality, which means that we have been accustomed to responding to the
world with emotion since childhood. However, emotion is unstable and
unreliable. Reliance on emotion not only exposes us to more new dangers, but
also prevents us from continuing to develop rationality and discover the
truth of things.
Due to habit, emotion often defeats reason at critical moments, causing us to make irrational decisions. Or our reason deliberately suppresses or hides our emotion and conflicts with it. These situations exacerbate our inner turmoil, which not only causes a drain on our vitality, but also hinders the ability to make wise decisions. We are likely to spend our teenage years and even middle age in this kind of chaos, often being swayed by our emotions against our true interests. Only when we are truly aware of this situation can we proactively seek solutions, otherwise it may plague us throughout our lives.
In fact, reason has penetrated into every aspect of our lives. In addition to work, when facing family, friendship or love, lack of reason will prevent us from establishing harmonious relationships. At the same time, we also find that no matter how rich the experience that emotion brings, it is not as important as reason, because reason can provide the greatest protection for life. And, even if we question this view, we must still use reason. Therefore, we should act based on reason and respect emotions. This means that all of our decisions should take into account the needs of life. With this awareness, we can understand the direction of developing wisdom and learn to combine emotion with reason to achieve the best life state.
In life we need to allow our sensibility to operate naturally and freely. Especially in the interaction of intimate relationships, we should convey our feelings to the other party without any worries through words, language or body movements, let reason transform them into insights. We also need to actively mobilize our emotion, to feel the existence and needs of others, and make rational efforts for each other's happiness. By accompanying others with rich and gentle emotion, and assisting others with stable and reliable reason, we can establish the relationship that love each other.
On the other hand, when solving problems, we need to start from feelings and give full play to the role of rationality. For example, to resolve a conflict of interest, we should think about the root cause of the conflict, analyze its consequences, and deduce the reasons for its occurrence. In this way, our emotion can firmly imprint the results of our thinking in the brain so that they can be quickly retrieved later. In addition to acting rationally, we should also not be discouraged when we fail, not be proud when we succeed, and maintain a stable and positive attitude. In teamwork, establishing good relationships with emotion and establishing order with reasonable systems can reflect our rational power. It is our rational task to arrange the order in which emotion and reason appear. When emotion operates smoothly and cooperates seamlessly with reason, it is the masterpiece of our rationality.
On the stage of life, arranging the order of appearance of emotion and reason so that the two work together seamlessly is the masterpiece of our rationality. If we lack rationality, we worry about losing control of ourselves. If we are afraid of our own sensibility, we will try to suppress it and be afraid to reveal our true feelings. But in this way we will not only become rigid, but also generate more negative emotions, which will endanger the body and mind. Therefore, it is also the task of our rational power to let emotion play their best role.
Imagine from a rational perspective that the emotional water carries the boat of reason, allowing us to explore the mysteries of nature from the stream of personal life, through the river of interpersonal relationships, and into the ocean of world events. We can also imagine it from an emotional perspective. Without the lubricant of emotion, our rational machinery will also quickly wear out, leaving reason weak and dull.
The messages brought by emotions can enlighten our reason. Our deepest feelings come from the discovery of the value of life, and this discovery can only come from the most intimate emotional relationships. We find that the value of life lies in connection, making things more orderly, so that life can continue. This reflects that emotion nourishes reason, allowing us to experience eternity and fill our hearts with joy. It can be seen that only by combining emotion and reason can we have a genuine heart, live for our true self, and thus see the truth, goodness and beauty in the world.
The combination of emotion and reason means that we always let reason lead our emotions, neither suppressing nor overindulging, neither relying on nor alienating. Therefore, our body and mind are unified, our emotions are calm, and we form an independent and healthy individual. Prioritizing rationality is the best way for intelligent life to act. Let emotion follow reason, and we can make decisions for the long-term benefit from observation. By allowing emotion to support reason, we can freely experience and protect life while creating a new world.
Only in a state where emotion and reason are combined can our creativity be fully unleashed. A beautiful world comes from our feelings about the truth, and a rich world comes from our boundless wisdom. Therefore, when emotion and reason are harmoniously integrated, we not only have a perfect ourselves, but also a perfect world.
93. Unload psychological burdens in time
