“Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I like to think that I’m a rational being. I trust logic to keep me on track and I distrust emotion. I don’t know how or why I made that decision. It was long ago. I tell myself that this is the superior way to navigate life’s obstacles. “Logic trumps emotions,” I say. but lately I’ve been forced to stop and reconsider. My reasoning is sound but still something is wrong because despite my logic, determination and planning, I’m still lost in the weeds since returning from Peru last month.
Logic tells me that I just need to pick up where I left off. I was following a plan until we left. I should be able to pick right up where I left off. If logic was the only consideration I’d be back at work creating content and a marketing plan for One Month Travel (my new website). Since I’m still struggling to get traction, it’s obvious that some other force is in play.
It all made sense when I put the plan together. The weeks before we left were dedicated to setting up the website basics and creating content. The trip itself would be fuel for the task, providing experience and inspiration and I would come back from Peru energized and ready to engage. That was the logic behind the plan. Returning from Peru, however, logic wasn’t enough. I can’t seem to get back on track. So what is going on? I think that it’s the emotional side of my nature that I have tried so hard to suppress.
It’s becoming clear to me that I’m a more complex person than I like to acknowledge. The reasonable, logical being I like to believe I am rests on an volatile base of emotion. While I dismiss emotion as erratic and dangerous, it doesn’t go away just because I don’t trust it. I may not recognize it’s influences but they continue to affect me none the less. The conscious mind may be willing but it’s not able to overcome the inertia of the unconscious where my emotions have been exiled.
Nearly a month after returning home, I’m still trying to get back in gear and start working my plan again. The logical part of my brain seems unable to fight forward against whatever is going on in the emotional side. I don’t know what to do to get moving. It’s not a logical problem and I never developed the skills to work with emotions. When I sit down to work, my mind wanders to something else. I am easily diverted to trivial pursuits instead of focusing on my plan. Time moves on and my projects don’t..
I’d like to make peace with and understand my emotional side but it is foreign to me. I don’t like it’s flighty nature and distrust it’s motives. I failed in my attempts to lock it up. I don’t know how to embrace it and I strongly fear the consequences of letting it have control. Still, it seems to have the upper hand however much I attempt to ignore it.
What do I do? At this point, I have no plan, just a goal. I don’t have logic to guide me and, as a result, .the future seems quite uncertain. If I let the past guide me I’ll just wait. Eventually logic will gain the upper hand at least marginally and I can return to my normal way of handling my life, suppressing the emotion and trusting in reason and logic.
There may be another path. What if I try to understand the emotional side of my mind? Logic tells me that the path is risky. It looks rocky and disappears in the fog up ahead. I have no idea where it goes and what I might experience along the way. “What would it be like” I wonder, “if emotion and reason could come together to help manage my life? That seems to be how other people live. Surely I can figure it out as well.” Of course, I don’t know the answer. It might not be better. I might really screw up. Most troubling of all, I don’t know what to do to make it happen. I’m flying blind.
