Learn to perceive reality through a filter of integrated emotions and analytical ability.
Something I have experienced personally and professionally too many times in my life is people's limited capacity to witness reality as it is and not through a filter of their emotions. This limitation not only provides incorrect information to the individual but can also do great harm to other people.
I would argue that this limitation is what gives rise to conflicts and division between people around the world, as well as to relationships and communities that may outwardly radiate compassion and understanding but which are in their nature rather very toxic. The term for people in these communities is "compassionate narcissists" and refers to behaviors of artificial kindness or altruistic actions primarily to strengthen one's own image and gain admiration. Unfortunately, therefore, to encourage the expression of everyone's feelings can have fatal consequences for people's ability to cooperate more effectively.
Such a statement from a licensed psychologist who works with people's emotional inner lives, I understand, may confuse some of you. Let me explain:
I am not saying that emotions should not be experienced and expressed. I am a very emotional person myself. But there is a big difference between being emotional and being emotionally driven without control. Emotions should be experienced and can, in combination with balanced contemplation, lead to wiser decisions, actions and expressions of your opinions. But you should avoid impulsively acting or speaking based on the first feeling that pops up within you.
Let me give a likely emotionally provocative and extreme example. There is an underground organization called King of the streets. They organize fights without rules, similar to the fights that take place on the street. As you can imagine, the gatherings are not legal.
After observing the reaction to this organization of other martial artists that fight in legal settings with rules, I can conclude that even those who are part of the same environment are drawn into emotionally driven and thoughtless reactions. The raw fights are condemned as crazy, brutal, dangerous and unnecessary. Most people fail to think beyond the immediate information that one's perception and feelings deliver.
Let me suggest an interpretation of King of the Streets that is more grounded in reality than emotionally driven:
Imagine that due to genetic causes you have a strong explosive energy within you that has likely accumulated since various challenging events in your childhood. This strong energy has either been repressed and caused harm to yourself, or expressed and caused harm to others.
Imagine you are this person. Where would you take this genetically explosive energy within you? (No. Regulated martial arts or other regulated but risky activities do not satisfy this very specific explosive energy.)
Let me suggest answers if you can't come up with anything worthwile yourself: Lifelong psychiatric confinement, prison, or a certain death.
How can any of these alternatives be seen as better and less costly for society than organized events where people in need of raw, reality-based fights gather and are allowed to exist based on the premises they themselves agree to?
Those who participate in King of the streets thus opt out of directly emotionally driven and impulsive violence, in favor of a violence that has both decision-making ability, consideration and a sense of consequence behind it. Since they fight without protection, great skill in martial arts techniques is required to deliver blows with a perfect balance of hardness and softness in strength. If they had intended to destroy their opponent, they would obviously have chosen to fight on the street and not seek out King of the streets.
What people who seek out King of the streets have in common is a strong interest in fighting itself, rather than in consciously wanting to harm, take revenge or kill, which is often the driving force behind violence on the street.
My example of people's impulsive condemnatory reactions to King of the Streets is just one of millions of other examples of similar situations in the world. As a person with both many academic credits and a lot of emotionally charged raw experiences of life itself, it worries me a lot that the average person has such a lack of ability to think analytically about emotionally triggering situations.
Feel your emotions fully. You must in order to keep your health and zest for life intact. But please, don't contaminate your surroundings with them before you know exactly what and why you feel what you feel. When you know that, your emotions can become a valuable contribution to your analytical and rational reasoning. Balance please!
Liv