McContrary

More and more I realize that Life often presents two sides of a coin (sometimes there’s more than two, but we’ll leave that alone for now). Light and dark. Good and evil. Love and hate. Single and coupled—or with multiple partners. (See what I mean by more than two sides?)

This is why through the years I noticed that I’ve developed a contrary nature. This contrary nature of mine kicks in especially when almost everybody else is in agreement of one thing; my knee-jerk reaction is to take the opposite side and say, “Wait! What if we examine the merits of the other side first, before we make a decision?”

Let’s take the case of Love.

I grew up a romantic, but Life led me down the cynic route, so now I’m pretty wary of all things romantic and mushy-gushy. What I do is immediately think of the opposite—usually the harsh realities—to temper any romantic notions to merely run away inside my heart. Runaway emotions, if not checked-and-balanced by reason, can lead one to decide on a course of action without considering the possible consequences.

So in the great debate between feelings and reason, I was always against this very romantic notion of “just feel it”. Emotions are emotions, neither right nor wrong; the best thing we can do is to feel these emotions. But the motivations behind such emotions may be worth examining.

For example: One might consider hooking up with another person because one misses this guy’s smiles, hugs and kisses. He might even find himself wanting to always be with the other person, because he misses the feeling of having someone to call his own. Nothing wrong with that, right? But wait, screech to a halt. Examine first the motivation behind such feelings; it may just be possible that what’s fuelling these emotions may be a selfish need to have someone. In fact this may turn out to be the case of “in love with the notion of being in love,” which ultimately is about the thrill of the chase. When the chase ends, the excitement and wonder disappears too. And the need to seek a new chase begins anew.

On the other hand, one must also be wary about over-thinking things. For me, over-thinking in and of itself isn’t the problem; it is when one cannot act out of indecision that over-thinking becomes a problem. That’s why in examining one’s feelings, one should not rely only on oneself; sometimes we are capable of lying to ourselves. This is what I meant when I said in one Fabcast that I don’t trust myself—I realize that I am capable of putting on mental blinders so as to “justify” my decisions. In such cases, a healthy set of friends who won’t hesitate to tell you what’s wrong with you will come in very handy.

I believe Love is a curious mix of the emotional and the rational. Curious because there’s no one solution that’s applicable to all; you have to find the mix that’s right for you.

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Sakit sa ulo ba itong episode na ‘to? Ed di mag paracetamol! =)