Step Three of Rational Thinking: Strategies Toward Bringing Out the Rational Self Flashcards
Know Yourself Thoroughly
The emotional self thrives on ignorance. The moment you are aware of how it operates and dominates you is the moment it loses its hold on you and can be tamed.
The first step toward the rational is always inward. You want to catch that emotional self in action. For this purpose, you must reflect on how you operate under stress. What particular weaknesses come out in such moments. Look at your decisions, especially those that have been ineffective—can you see a pattern, an underlying insecurity that impels them?
Examine your strengths, what makes you different from other people. This will help you decide upon goals that mesh with your long-term interest and that are aligned with your skills. By knowing and valuing what marks you as different, you will also be able to resist the pull of group bias and effect.
Examine your emotions to their roots
You are angry. Let the feeling settle from within, and think about it. Was it triggered by something seemingly trivial or petty? That is a sure sign that something or someone else is behind it. Perhaps a more uncomfortable emotion is at the source M – such as envy or paranoia. You need to look at this square in the eye. Dig below any trigger points to see where they start.
Greatest danger here is your ego and how it makes you unconsciously maintain illusions about yourself. These may be comforting in the moment, but in the long run, they make you defensive and unable to learn or progress.
Find a neutral position from which you can observe your actions, with a bit of attachment and even humor. Soon all of this will become second nature.
Increase your reaction time
This power comes through practice and repetition. When some event or interaction requires a response, you must train yourself to step back. This could mean physically removing yourself to a place where you can be alone and not feel any pressure to respond. Or it could mean writing that angry email, but not sending it. You sleep on it for a day or two. You do not make phone calls or communicate while feeling some sudden emotion, particularly resentment. The longer you can take the better, because perspective comes with time.
Accept people as facts
Interactions with people are the major source of emotional turmoil, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The problem is that we are continually judging people, wishing they were something they are not. We want to change them. We want them to think and act a certain way, most often the way we think and act. And because this is not possible, because everyone is different, we are continually frustrated and upset.
See other people as phenomena, as neutral as comments or planets. They simply exist. They come in all varieties, making life rich and interesting. Work with what they give you, instead of resisting and trying to change them. Make your acceptance with human nature as radical as possible. This will calm you down and help you observe people more dispassionately, understanding them on a deeper level.
Find the optimal balance of thinking and emotion
We cannot divorce emotions from thinking. The two are completely intertwined. But there is inevitably a dominant factor; some people more clearly governed by emotions than others.
Ancient Greeks had an appropriate metaphor for this: the rider and the horse. The horse is our are emotional nature continually impelling us to move. This horse has tremendous energy and power, but without a rider, it cannot be guided; it is wild, subject to predators, and continually heading into trouble. The rider is our thinking self.
The horse rider must work together. This means we consider our actions beforehand; we bring as much thinking as possible to a situation before we make a decision.
Love the rational
It is important to not see the path to rationality as something painful or ascetic. In fact, it brings powers that are mentally satisfying and pleasurable, much deeper than the more manic pleasures the world tends to offer us. Taming the emotional self leads to an overall calmness and clarity. You have more mental space to be creative. You feel more in control.
