EMOTIONALLY SPEAKING AND WHY TED KENNEDY NEVER MATTERED: PART 1 OF 4

Emotion-Based Decisions and Why They’re Bad

Have you ever made a decision based on emotion?

When you were hurt, angered, saddened, frustrated, embarrassed.

A decision needed be made, and you acted out of emotion rather than logic and good (common) sense.

Probably so.

I know I have.

In hindsight, it was virtually always the wrong decision.

In times like the present,
men should utter nothing
for which they would not
willingly be responsible
through time and eternity.
–Abraham Lincoln

Have you ever had to “eat crow” or “swallow your words,” as it were, based on something you’ve said when related to this emotion-based decision?

Probably so.

I know I have.

If you haven’t, then it quite possibly means you're not being intellectually honest right now or you were too proud to admit mistake and / or failure and you’re still clinging onto what felt right before but you know in your heart of hearts that it isn’t right now.  Virtually every decision that I’ve made in that situation was bad, wrong or misguided in some way, and every time I didn’t admit my mistake, it sat in the pit of my stomach and festered.

It’s not easy to excommunicate yourself from the emotion of your circumstances, but it has to be done.

This is (probably) one of the primary reasons as to why financial advisor Dave Ramsey always advises those who have just lost a loved one to wait 6 months before making any sort of major decisions related to the financial impact of the death.

It’s difficult enough to make good financial decisions when everything is “normal” much less when your entire life has been put onto an emotional roller coaster for a while.  Many are faced with having to deal with or reinvest large sums of money from life insurance or other sources and doing this while in mourning is seemingly an impossible task to do correctly.  When possible, put it on ice, and then decide.  If not possible and a decision has to be made right away, call someone close to you, a couple of trusted people perhaps that can be objective third parties, that can give honest and real input.

As for me and my recent trials, I recently hurt my calf muscle.

I strained it in my Monkey Butler improv comedy class of all places.

I’ve never been injured in this way before, so it was an entirely new experience for me.

Because I didn’t have any previous injuries with which to compare my current one, I didn’t know how bad it was, I just knew it was swollen and painful.

After one week of almost no improvement in the reduction of swelling and the lessening of pain when attempting to stretch my calf a bit, I started to get a bit panicky.

I have health insurance. 

I have a disability policy that would kick in and pay my bills if something kept me from being able to work or, God forbid, pay my debts if I died.

But, it still started to affect my psyche.

Even at that, I don’t want any hand outs from the government.

I want to be dependent upon those around me who wish to help and I want those around me to be able to depend on me.

Once you remove the need for other individuals from the equation, you begin to miss out on why God designed us to REQUIRE each other (whether we realize it or not, and I’m here to help you realize it) to be able to make it through on a daily basis.

And no, I didn’t get any of my “stimulus” money that came back from George Dubya’s previous administration either.

You can keep it.  I don’t want it. 

Even though it was mine to begin with.