Often we are chided at a decision point by well-wishers - "Don't be emotional". As if to say - emotions have no logic to back. Oooops, how wrong these well- wishers can be.
Our emotional reactions are neither irrational nor irresponsible. Our unconscious decisions infact follow a clear logic. They are based on a deeply empirical mental- processing system that is capable of effortlessly cycling through millions of bits of data without getting overwhelmed.
Our conscious mind, on the other hand, has a strict bottleneck, because it can only process three or four new pieces of information at a time due to the limitations of our working memory.
Read the Doodle below. In the IOWA Gambling experiments, the Researchers were tracking anxiety levels of the subjects as they were drawing out the successive cards from the different packs. Anxiety levels of the subjects started going up from the 10th round itself when they drew from the dangerous packs. By the 50th draw , they emotionally avoided pulling from those decks.
It took 80 draws to logically explain the danger that emotions perceived at the 10th draw and confirmed the danger at the 50th. Emotions are faster. Logic slower. Next time you know what to do.
In most of the situations, I let my emotions write the narrative and then I tell my logic to confirm it. Generally, I have not gone wrong. But whenever I have allowed my logic to write the narrative and asked my emotions to confirm it, the conflict has been irreconcilable. When the two concurred, it was bliss.
Comments