Our ability to feel is as important as our ability to think. Both are functions of brain…there is no heart involved in this process…;-). Feeling is an emotional state or reaction. Thinking is the process of considering or reasoning about something. Under the garb of maturity and professionalism, feeling is discouraged and thinking is promoted. Idea of being successful is equated with that of being rational – hence the birth of a rational man/woman. But the fact remains that we humans are not rational. We are as emotional as rational !!
Question is how to use this to our advantage- in personal and professional growth ?
When we embrace our feelings, we connect. The first connection that we establish is…with ourselves. We feel alive…alive to the potential inside us and also alive to our emotions of love, anger, wonder, fear etc. We can use this understanding to develop and display the ones we want and exercise control over the ones we do not. Irrespective, we feel them and live them !!
Ability to feel also helps us to develop hobbies. Hobbies are creatures with absolutely no rationale for existence – rationally why do you want to get up at 4 am in the morning to photograph wildlife or nature or something else when (in the words of my brother) you can always Google a better picture ?? Why do we carry extra baggage with heavy camera equipments when a simple mobile can suffice ?? Why would you like to spend your hard earned money on some 50 year old stamps or some lower denomination foreign coins ?? Mountaineering and Recreational Fishing takes it even a step further…you climb a mountain only to come down and you catch the fish to throw it again in the water !!
Makes little sense, correct ?? But the thrill, contentment and pleasure it provides cannot be explained either !! Hobbies helps us grow as people. Our thoroughly irrational behaviors immensely helps us to survive in this rational world – it keeps a part of us that matters – alive !!
Human beings are “sentient” by creation (eastern philosophy recognize even animals to have varying degree of sentience – ability to feel, perceive or experience subjectivity). If we are sentience by nature, how are we expected to function optimally when we let go of one of our natural and strong ability to perceive reality around us ?? Sounds a bit illogical…right ? So why are we repeatedly taught that thinking is what that counts-to bring objectivity in our thoughts ? Maybe, the answer to this lies in the fact that what we cannot measure, categorize and understand properly, we start to run away from. And if we continue this practice long enough, we start to forget some of the things we were meant to remember. In absence of proper language of documentation and expression, we risk ignoring and undermining the importance of feeling in our holistic expression, development and well being !!
Our ability to feel enables us to perceive the world holistically. It gives us our identity of being unique and imperfect. It makes us different …it gives us our vices and our virtues. These imperfection makes us achieve things, that only we can perceive and hence, shape. It makes us resilient, compassionate and positive beings. Feelings breed empathy and it shows us a pathway to a healthy and non mechanical environment.
Are you a feeling person or a thinking person ??
There need not be a choice. Combine a fine feeling mind with that of a good thinking head and you have a winning combination at play !! Be a thinking person and be a feeling person. Our ability to feel is perhaps the greatest gifts we possess as people – it connect us to ourselves, the nature, the people around us and to the divine !! Embrace your feelings, be mature, be professional, be alive !!