Emotional vs. Rational

“I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous; everyone hasn’t met me yet. I Told my psychiatrist I have suicidal tendencies. He told me to pay in advance.” – Rodney Dangerfield

We sometimes hear remarks about others, such as, “He is so emotional!” followed by someone else remarking, “Yes, he’s a bit short on rationality.” Somehow emotions and rationality have found themselves at opposite ends of the personality spectrum. This makes little sense. It is possible to be unemotional and irrational. It is also possible to be emotional and rational (a wonderful combination).

Rationality is about logic. A rational person recognizes that a ≠ b. A rational person believes there are laws to reality. If the bridge is broken, I cannot drive across it. If I’m earning $50,000 per year, either I have access to other funds, or a $500,000 mortgage is not going to happen for me. We’re all rational for the most part. We all fail at rationality from time-to-time. Significant rational failures can make survival difficult.

Rational people can range widely in their reactions to seeing a deer run over in the street. One person may give the deer’s death little thought. Perhaps he will think, “Good. One less pest in the neighborhood. It’s so hard to keep a nice flower garden around here with all the deer.” Another person may associate the deer with Bambi. Maybe he will anthropomorphize the deer and name it Bambi. Perhaps he will empathize, imagining the deer’s terror before it was hit, and the pain that came after. Perhaps the observer recalls another death he has witnessed, remembering all the sorrow and questions that accompanied the earlier experience. One person may be unmoved, while the person next to him is devastated.

In this situation either reaction is understandable. But, to the point, notice that both emotional reactions were determined by mental commentary. Emotions do not drive behavior; thinking drives emotion, which means that thinking drives behavior. When someone refers to someone else as “emotional”, what she really means is that the person tends to mentally exaggerate situations and then react according to the exaggerated thoughts.

Anger is an example of this. Here’s a common phrase: “You make me so mad!” Nobody makes anyone else mad. Others do things we don’t like. Getting mad is our own reaction.

No one gets angry without cause. Sometimes something evil is running amok and anger can aid in putting a stop to it, but this is unusual. Generally people get angry because they are trying to impose an agenda. The basic thought process is, “My anger is evidence of how important this issue is to me. And if it is important to me, it is inherently important. I will establish how important my position is by getting angry first, and by getting more angry than anyone else. My passion reveals how dangerous I am, and my threatening behavior will cause those around me to back down. Their retreat is good because I am right. I will have my way.”

Unfortunately, this counterproductive reasoning. This use of anger is, essentially, bullying. The angry person, by turning to force, has removed the fair exchange of ideas from the process. This loss of input reduces the likelihood of reaching a fair solution. In general, the imposition of anger leads to foolish solutions, with the secondary impact of damaging relationships.

Another reason people get angry is that they feel threatened. It might be a threat to health, it might be a threat to finances but, most likely, it is a threat to the person’s dignity. Most people believe it is a good idea to defend their dignity. (Ironically, the defense of dignity is highly undignified. The more a person defends his character and his resume’, the more his audience is thinking, “idiot”; “what a load of crap,” as they search for some excuse to get away.)

Characterizing a person is “plain angry” is not really an explanation. People who are easily angered are people who are not fair-minded. When traffic is backed up a mile in front of you, it is entirely possible that someone has done something wrong. Perhaps a drunk driver caused a pile-up. That driver earned some anger. Perhaps the problem is that there are more cars on the road than its designed capacity. That would suggest a societal failure to provide transportation infrastructure. But, in any case, it makes no sense to honk incessantly at the car in front of you. That kind of expression comes from a person who lacks perspective.

Becoming less emotional is not a proper objective. There’s a song I’ve tried to sing along with probably a hundred times, but I can’t get through it. The song, written by Terrance Harrison and Margaret Nelson, is called, “I Know You By Heart”. It’s sung by Eva Cassidy, which adds melancholy background since Eva died of melanoma at age 33. It’s a song about a close relationship that has ended, perhaps in death. The last stanza is:

You left in autumn
The leaves were turning
I walked down roads of orange and gold
I saw your sweet smile
I heard your laughter
You’re still here beside me
Everyday
‘Cause I know you by heart

Of course, Eva’s voice and the musical instruments must be added to give the full effect of sweet sorrow.

But if a song is sad and it brings tears to your eyes, hey, that’s all good. Wouldn’t there be something wrong if nothing makes you laugh or cry or exasperated or angry, or even depressed?

The fundamental point is this: emotions are physiological expressions of what we’re thinking. There is no problem of being too emotional or too stoic; the problem, if there is one, stems from the thought process.

If I whang my thumb with a hammer and respond by cursing the hammer and throwing it through a window, my reaction was due to some careless thinking. I blamed the hammer for my injury when, in fact, I injured myself by improperly holding the nail, as well as swinging the hammer badly. It was my own fault. And maybe it would have made sense to get mad at myself for being so careless, but it made no sense to break the window. The broken window stands as testimony to my stupidity until I fix it. Hopefully I don’t pierce my throbbing thumb with a shard of glass.

One of my worst attributes is impatience. I struggle within myself, knowing that I should be patient, while my natural inclination is to be impatient. To be impatient with someone else is to look down on them. It’s a kind of judgmentalism. The Parable of the Two Servants addresses this tendency severely. Essentially, it asks the question, “Since God has forgiven you all of your sins, how can you fail to forgive the small sins that others commit against you?” Having perspective does not necessarily heal us, but it can set us in the direction of healing.

Most anger is due to a false sense of entitlement. Most fear is due to melodramatic imaginations added to small threats. Or maybe, more comprehensively, most fear is due to a failure to recognize the goodness and sovereignty of God.

Jubilation can be misplaced, too. The crowds used to fill the Coliseum to see the gladiators rip each other apart, and to see the lions shred the Christians. Mobs used to gather in early U.S. history to watch hangings. These hangings (not referring to lynchings here) were meant to serve as civic warnings but, little doubt, there was more lurid pleasure being experienced than lessons being learned. I often wonder at the passion of family members who clamor for the death sentence for the murderer of their loved one. I understand their sorrow and I understand their anger, but I wonder about the passionate clamoring for punishment, even when the person deserves a severe punishment.

Nerves before public performances is an example of an emotion that is difficult to manage. Jerry Seinfeld has a joke about this. “According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” I can get very dry mouth during speeches. This is an emotional response to my own pride—my worries about performance and how other people will assess me. I’ve learned that I literally have to change my mind in this situation. I have to change it from performance orientation to a strict focus on the content of the presentation. I have to replace my thoughts of self-consciousness with a fixation on the information I am trying to convey. Knowing this has not cured me of speech anxiety, but it has helped a great deal.

Part of the problem is that we don’t have complete control over our own thoughts. But, still, realizing that our emotional outbursts are rooted in what we are thinking is very important. If we take the time to ruminate about our wild behaviors (after the storms have passed), we will unpack the falsehoods in our thought processes. Probably confessing to a friend would help…or even a professional counselor. In the end, the idea is not to be less emotional, but to be more thoughtful, letting the emotions freely accompany the sensible and beneficial thoughts.