I know this term may seem contradictory at first sight! But delve deeper, as I did, and there’s a lot of unearthing to do…

All of us live by the idea that we are emotional beings and do a lot of things influenced by the emotions that run through us. We also believe that if we remove emotions from anything, we become nonchalant and non-committal. Hence, it is almost logical to deduce that we go through our life journey in large parts guided by emotions.

But if we look at a lot of other things that we do, specially when it comes to our careers / professional life, we like to believe that we are being logical. Or for some of us, even in other aspects of our life, including in relationships.

We also generally go by the belief that most times when we get emotional, our logical self goes for a hike and we end up doing things which may not be in the best interest of ourselves.

But what if there’s a possibility of these two seemingly contradictory worlds co-existing?

This week, as me and my wife spent a lot of time discussing and debating on certain important decisions that could impact us for years to come, I came to realize that this possibility could be real.

We started off with the position that we must decide logically about our choice and hence dissected a lot of aspects to understand what will be the best choice for us. We discussed about our individual perspectives, collective thoughts as a family, and even from an outwardly point of view.

We laid bare all the possibilities of what could go right for us in making those choices and what could go wrong.

We thought about the impact those choices may have on us, our daughter, our parents and siblings, and weighed them on our barometer.

We looked at our choices from a professional and a financial perspective and also thought out different scenarios about what we want to achieve.

Eventually though, it all came down to emotions!

Behind all the logical thinking and brainstorming, we were somewhere also attaching our thoughts to our emotions. And those emotions were complicating the decision making process.

Finally, after a lot of logical discussion, when we couldn’t arrive at a clear decision, we resorted to the ultimate emotional test – what would make us happier?

As we judged the choices and let our emotions guide us to the logical conclusion, I realized that it was a combined play between logic and emotions that got us home. If not, we would still be undecided!

I recently heard from a wise man, “Bring your own authentic self to the fore everywhere, and you won’t have to maintain two different personalities at work and at home”. Extending it a little, I would add, “Let emotions and logic run into each other and help guide you to the right things in life, don’t try and keep them separate”.

Let life be decided not on the basis of one single thing, for it is as complex as complex can be…