Follow your heart, but take your brain with you

It's kind of ironic that last week I wrote a post about being a Thinker and a Feeler because of what happened to me this week...

I went to a negotiations course at work about managing emotions while you negotiate. Now, the #1 question that comes to everyone's mind is, "so do you have a great poker face now?" Not really! Because having a poker face means you are hiding your true emotions- not necessarily managing them, and this course was all about managing them! You don't have to fake a facial expression to hide your real feelings.

The instructor was discussing feelings vs. thinking and all that because this class was about emotions. We even took a test where we would try to label people's pictures and say if they were ________. Fill in the blank with an emotion. One thing she said struck me because I was complaining about  indecisive people. I am not indecisive about very many things. If you wait too long to decide something you'll miss out on something even greater, so just move forward. And no, I am not talking about making completely irrational decisions SOLELY based on emotions. That is just silly; you do have to use some logic. Anyway she said that indecisive people are not committing any real feelings towards any of the available options. Telling these people to be more logical and weigh their options are some instructions that mean nothing and will also not help them make a decision.


I just watched this week's episodes of Big Brother that I missed. Yes, that is one of my reality game shows that I am addicted to. This addiction is a long and drawn-out one that I try to avoid, so I won't linger on that subject any longer. Boom. One of the players, Ragan, just said "I need to take my feelings out of the game and decide who to vote for." I wanted to scream at him. "NOOOOOOO YOU DONNNNNN'T! You need to put your feelings inside of the game in order to really decide who you want to vote for."

Basically, in order to make a decision you must put your feelings in front of you and decide what is the best for your happiness/ what you like the most/ what means the most to you. NOT what makes the most sense/ what is the most hassle-free decision/ what causes the least pushback. While this is kind of a circular thought, it does make sense! Of course it also makes me feel okay to be girly when it comes to making decisions. There is not always an obvious answer, but for us girls we attach our emotions to things more quickly than guys do. And sometimes that can be overwhelming for people to hear, especially when it seems that we have so many demands. But guys really just need to learn to attach their emotions to decisions instead of weighing the logic of it all sooo much more.

What do you think? Are you more emotional than logical? Or more logical than emotional? I know i prefer to use both and in as equal a manner as I can.