in the words of Owecthrgd… what is your strongest emotion, and why?
Favorite emotion, huh? No sorry, strongest. Strongest emotion. Oooh, that’s a good question… I have to pick one, right? (chuckles)
Well, love is pretty strong. So is pleasure; indulgence. Security is another big one, especially in this day and age. Fear too; you know, that’s been used plenty of times in history to accomplish things.
Right, but we’re focusing on my emotions. Hm… well I’m pretty relaxed at the moment. There are certainly days where I’ve got a lot on my plate, doing what I do. Other days I’m busy, yes, but in a good way, you know? It’s like, yes, I’m busy. But this is something I love to do. This is something I’m familiar with, I’ve been at this for several years—several decades now, actually. Wow… Anyway, it’s something I love doing. There are certainly many days that aren’t stellar, some miserable ones, believe it or not. It’s hard not to let the bad experiences feel, you know, much stronger than an equally good experience…
I’m not doing a good job, picking, aren’t I? Ha ha ha ha! Okay! Okay, give me a sec.
Hm… Oh! I’ve got a good one. One I’ve always wondered about. Well, hold on… It’s not really… Well, how about this! How about we expand beyond the question and talk about experiences. My strongest experience, how about that? Can I do that? Is that against the rules? (chuckles)
Right, right, emotions are experiences too right? Ha ha ha! To be fair, for this particular example, I guess it’s an emotion anyway. It’s something I’ve experienced—something I’ve felt many times over the years—even when I was a strapping young lad like you!
Here we go: have you ever been in a situation, where you knew what to do… before you were aware you knew. You just, go ahead and do it. Or, you knew what to say, or how to react to a comment, even if you didn’t expect what the person was going to say… And you sort of catch yourself doing it and think, “Wow, I handled that well,” or maybe think to yourself something like, “Yeah, been here, done that.”
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever thought beyond that, but I remember the first time I caught myself doing this, back whenever I was younger and going through college and… cutting my teeth, basically. I remember thinking to myself—and this is the first time I felt this way—I thought to myself, “Wow, this is amazing. I think I have a good sense of what I’m doing!” And back then, yes I had a direction I wanted to go, but I didn’t really know very well what I should be doing or if I could even make it in the first place.
So imagine what it would’ve been like to have such an experience! Well, I guess you don’t need to think that hard. It’s a great feeling, right? You feel like you’ve got all of your pieces together and you’re on the right track to accomplish, at the very least, something. It’s like a little snapshot into what it’s like to be old and wise, you know? (chuckles)
It was a real confidence booster. So after that, a sort of race began, so to speak. I felt like I needed to gain more and more experience, you know. Build up a library of knowledge, and with that, more importantly, build up your intuition for things. Not just what you do in your everyday job, but your everyday life as well. You know, you get better at starting a discussion. Or you get better at interacting with someone and getting a grasp of their perspective. What they’re trying to explain, why they think a certain way, and so forth.
As for the work you do, feeling like you’re qualified to do the things you do or say the things you say really does liberate you to just do what you want. Do what you’re good at. I think the word ‘intuition’ sums up this experience well. Yeah. It’s your ‘gut feeling.’ It tells you what to do without knowing the full reason why. It quite addicting too, now that I think about it. Aha ha ha! It’s kind of strange to frame it that way, but really. I think it’s what drives overconfidence too. Especially when you’re so certain you’re right that you can’t think of any other way it could be wrong. But! But, if you build up a discipline for checking yourself—keeping your confidence in check—then I don’t see it as a problem. I make it sound easier than it is, but I think I’d rather be left with a monster to check rather than left in the dark!