Discussion Forum: Rational and Emotional thinking

 

 

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

Blaise Pascal

The Discussion Forum at NCM met on 22nd July 2021, Thursday. The key takeaways from the earlier session were outlined, which are as follows.

• The secret to effective relationships resides simply in our ability to take the perspective of another. Therefore we must always try to understand other person’s point of view.
• We must not judge people beforehand. Judging is easy, it is challenging to accept and be kind to other person. So we should give chances to others rather than being judgmental.
• We must check our beliefs and biases continuously and keep correcting and updating them.
• One thing we must never forget is that whatever we see, observe or listen is our perception of reality, not absolute reality.
• Lastly, thinking is essential, over thinking is not.

The discussion moved on to the subject Rational and Emotional thinking. Scientists classify the human brain into two parts: Left brain and right brain. Every time we make a decision our left brain battles with our right brain.

Rational behaviour deals with the mind and emotional behaviour deals with the heart. These are described as two separate systems of thinking.

With this background Dr. Shah posed four questions to the participants to ponder upon. Everyone contemplated thoughtfully on these questions:

• What are emotions? Make a list of positive and negative emotions you experience.
• Are you a Rationalist? Elaborate
• What is the role of feelings, intuition and emotions in your decision making?
• Under what circumstances what you talk might be considered irrational or illogical?

Again this was an opportunity to explore and examine the decision making process in our personal as well as professional actions. Rational thinking is a slow and analytical process often considered superior. However emotions govern all situations in our life.

An individual cannot make decisions based on rational thinking alone. These are not two separate systems instead rational and emotional thinking, are intertwined.  While making decisions an individual must be able to effectively harness emotions and intuitions which may lead to better outcomes. For balancing the emotional and logical thinking we must consciously assess our emotions: enhance positive emotions and reduce the negative ones and increase self awareness.

The take home message from this discussion was:

• Add a temper of emotions to everything you do!
• In a relationship feelings are always expressed in an irrational manner.
• Relaxing talks with friends have little meaning but lot of fun!
• Highly rational people become boring sometimes.

The Discussion Forum next meets on 30th July, 2021, and the discussion would be on “Critical & Creative Thinking”.

*****