About emotions and decision making

It is a great asset to be able to separate the influence of extreme emotions from the decision making. Easy said than done right. Yes it is but that can change. I have come to some realisation as I have gone about things. Certain situations would fluster me to the point of paralysis but if a friend comes to me for help on the same issue, my recommendations will be to the point to almost ruthless levels and devoid of any emotions. The difference I realise here is of the influence of extreme emotions in the decision making process. So here are a few points I have been pondering about this issue:

• Emotions have the habit of contaminating the facts surrounding an issue. It is important to judge facts on their merit alone. This requires a certain ruthlessness as its human nature to classify facts based on the emotion they generate. This requires practice. To shut out how you feel about an object or a situation without actuallu classifying it as good or bad is very difficult. The mind behaves like a large database system, the moment a new situation comes up, it looks to classify it based on certain known attributes. The trouble is that this can often be done before dilligent examination has been completed.Adding to that, almost everybody has his mind tuned to a certain threshold which determines the ratings we give to each situation. If your mind is set to negative settings/safe settings, it will colour the situation with a likewise rating. so sometimes the key is to just reset the threshold.
• Look at facts from a third person's point of view. Look at any situation as if it was not happening to you but to another person and you have to provide an impartial solution to it.
• Facts themselves are never positive or negative, its what we make of it that is positive or negative. This is something I am increasingly realising these days. A stock market crash can be a highly negative occurance or a highly positive opportunity depending on where you are looking at it. So it is important to be fanatically positive. Would you ever go into a battle with faulty weapons, never right? A fact when looked as opportunity will change the way you look at the situation. Whats more you will turn the situation which could have been potentially loaded with negative emotions into one with positive ones driven by possibilities and opportunities.

I like the word "opportunity". Its got such a positive vibe about it. It motivates you to think ahead, work towards a goal you can see and achieve. The best part is that often one opportunity's fulfillment leads to the opening of a newer, higher level, refined one. and best of all its there, everywhere around you. Anything you touch see or feel is some form of opportunity. One just has to identify and make the start. All of a sudden, the whole world resembles an amusement park with you at the gates. Wherever you go, a host of new enriching experiences await you.