It’s crazy, the force with which your heart can pull you. Sometimes a logical, reasoning mind is no match for a heart that yearns. Why is it so? What is heart (not in the biological sense), really? Heart is only emotion, but where does this emotion come from?
Without knowledge (mind-work), from where can emotions originate? They cannot come from nothing. Emotion is ALWAYS a reaction, secondary to knowledge. Emotions are generated from the internal analysis and processing of knowledge, logic, and reason. With no knowledge, we have no emotion. So, in an around-about way, emotions are formed from knowledge. I suppose this gives some validity to emotions… phew.
If I have the knowledge that my ex-grlfriend is truly no good for me, why then, am I still emotionally drawn to her. My first thought was the whole garbage-in, garbage-out theory. If I am emotionally drawn to her and that is bad, then my knowledge too, must be bad (or faulty at best). I believe, that this train-of-thought is generally accurate.
THEN IT HIT ME! What else can drive strong, difficult emotions in a person? Addiction. I was high as a kite when we were together. I have no doubt that a physiological / chemical change took place within me. It’s kinda’ scary to see this… The only reason I give her any thought at all, is because my body craves a fix.
No normal person wants to be disliked by someone else. However, I’ve known many people in my life, myself included, who have compromised themselves just to be looked upon favorably by others.
I’ve come to believe that a man with no enemies is a spineless man plagued with low self-esteem, a man who bends (and eventually breaks). Believing in ourselves and what we value may not always be congruent with the values of others; people are going to disagree with us in life. People may even get miffed, or dislike us for what we believe, but that is okay.
Compromising who we are, our individual beliefs and values, is a long-term debt that our self-esteem will have to pay eventually. What we believe in our core, is a part of who we are. You cannot go against what you believe in your heart and maintain the same level of self-respect you had before doing so. Each line in the sand that is kicked away and re-drawn, brings us closer to losing who we know ourselves to be. How many politicians start-out with the best of intentions, only to compromise their values and pander to their constituents to win votes?
Our values and beliefs are the cornerstones of who we are. They support us, helping us to maintain a stable self-image of ourselves. You can only chisel-away at these cornerstones for so long before the entire structure collapses. Without our values and beliefs firmly in place, immovable, we begin to lose sight of who we are.
Yes, it is necessary to compromise or reevaluate maintaining values and beliefs that do not serve us well. However, what we believe and value at our core, what we know to be right, should never be compromised, not for money, not for politics, not for social acceptance, and not for love.
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