About Thinking, Feeling, and Making Decisions

Have you ever thought that we are constantly making decision, every day?

The way we view making decisions is usually making big decisions, should we invest or just do “YOLO” lifestyle? Should we buy a house or a car, should we travel or save money? When we experience inconvenience at work, should we stay or should we go? But that’s not our only type of decisions. We are constantly making small decisions everyday, whether we realise it or not.

When we wake up in the morning, we already make decisions, should we wake up when our alarm start ringing or we sleep for another 5 minutes? should we take a shower or have coffee first? Should we stay at home or going out? This dress or that dress, this bag or that bag? Should we do what people expect us to do? Should we still follow the rule when it’s not alligned with our value? Should we be ourselves and different or just join the crowd and be a part of the group? All these daily activities are based on our decisions, and how we make small decisions may affect how we make big decisions.

Some people make decisions by listening to their feeling, some others use their thinking, I’m sure people use both but which one is more dominant? I’m not trying to say which one is best, but we can see the difference between those two, sometimes we need to know ourselves and how we react to something so we can use our thinking and feeling more effectively in order to make better decisions.

People are predictably irrational, sometimes being irrational (in certain degree and case) is good — maybe we can learn something new out of it or get an unexpected amazing result, but I think we need to be aware of our irrationality so we’re not operating on autopilot (This is not academically proven — this is just my opinion. I cannot do something without being aware of what I’m doing, what I think and how I feel, most of the time I try to explore all of those aspects before making decisions, especially big decisions). 

Study case: 

After finishing my master degree, I went back to my hometown, my dad had 4th stage cancer, I cancelled all plans to work in Germany, I just wanted to stay with my family. If I only used my thinking, I would’ve stayed in Germany, but since I also used my feeling — I decided to go back home. If I decided to stay in Germany, probably when my dad passed away, I would regret that decision all my life. 

In 2019, my mom and sisters kept telling me to save money to buy a house (because they saw me always on traveling mode), I didn’t really pay attention to their advice, as someone who has her own thinking, I listen more to myself than to other people. At that time, I didn’t really want to buy a house, I barely stay at home, always traveling for work. But then Covid happened, and I couldn’t really travel anymore, and suddenly I wanted a house of my own, I needed my own space. Before buying a house, I calculated all the money I had at that time, I didn’t have enough money to pay everything all at once and I didn’t want to take bank loan, the house developer said since I was buying a house that was not even built yet I could pay it in 4 installments according to the development progress (within 1 year), that was a great news, I could save money from my salary to pay the last installment. So that was it.. finally I got a house without a bank loan. In this case I used both thinking and feeling, my feeling was like “I want to have a house”, but my thinking was like “I need proper location and proper design, if I buy a finished house, I need to take bank loan because I have to pay the house 100%, and later I have to spend more money to renovate it”, it’s better to think it through than to make impulsive decision based on feeling or emotion.

I feel and think deeply, that’s why sometimes I find it difficult to connect with people, most people connect in surface/superficial level, I can’t trully connect with people in this level. Most people assume this as “feelingless”, that’s where they’re wrong, they’re not used to deep feeling, they can’t access it, so they assume it’s the non-existence of feelings. I feel my feelings deeply and consciously, I value the connection that occures in this level. This connection occurs in both directions, we love and see people for who they are, we understand them, we support them, we walk with them, nothing to fix, correct, or solve. We know their core self and we choose stay with them, we allow people to be their authentic self. It’s rare, but it does exist. 

The way I use my thoughts, feelings, emotions and perceptions is different from how most people use theirs. I pay attention to my surrounding, I pay attention to details, I gather information, and when I’m alone with my thought, my mind process all the information, and later process the feeling. My mind is so loud with my thoughts, my heart is so full with feelings, and I love it and I feel grateful for it. Sometimes, I need to think what I feel or feel what I think, maybe it sounds weird to most people, but for people who use deep thinking and feeling a little too much, it’s just something natural, maybe you’ll say “why don’t you just think what you think and feel what you feel?” Yep, I do that too — I embrace all my emotions and feelings. But when I think what I feel and feel what I think, I can articulate my thoughts dan feeling very well, and I like it. 

I don’t use my deep thinking and feeling all the time, even though I’m aware of my decisions — I don’t think very hard when making small decisions, but I exercise my thinking and feeling whenever possible and convenient. I think as a human, we should explore our unique strength, I do not like to do things on autopilot, I think we betray ourselves as human if we do not use what we have, being human and being alive and having the ability to feel and think deeply is delicious. Being conscious of our mind, body and soul is delicious, getting lose in our own thoughts is delicious. You should try it sometimes. 

*Note: this is not a psychological article, you may disagree with this, this is just my personal experience. And I’m not sure if I use the term correctly, my academic background isn’t Psychology and English isn’t even my 1st language.