We’re all full of contradictions, really.
I tried so hard to be rational, to remain consistent in how I thought and acted. But when I finally realised I couldn’t shed my own contradictions, I fell into rather deep self-loathing for a time.
I’ve always wondered: why do we even have emotions? Why can’t we simply live by reason alone? I still haven’t found an answer.
After accepting that I can’t always be rational, I began to think about the limits inherent in us all.
I have mine too, though perhaps because I’ve come to know myself better—and learned to trust myself more—I feel that my limits have broadened beyond most people’s.
For a long while, I could understand what emotions others were showing, but truly feeling what they felt remained difficult.
Then I came to see that emotions are intricate blends of so many different things.
Once I began to understand how people differ in their values, their responses to problems, how they process their experiences—that’s when I could genuinely empathise.
Here’s an example: there were two people in the news at different times. Both had failed in business.
One went to Mapo Bridge and jumped; the other went out into the street and threw away all his money.
The same event, yet their reactions were completely different. To an outsider, it might have seemed like the same situation, but the depth at which each of them experienced that failure—the weight it carried, their state of mind—was utterly different. And those differences led to such divergent choices.
After realising this, I became more conscious of the weight my own words and actions carry.
I grew quieter after that, more careful in how I behaved. I asked myself: am I becoming timid, or simply more thoughtful?
Almost at once, I realised it didn’t really matter.
What mattered was that I’d learnt to think more deeply about what someone says or does before I respond.
I don’t entirely like who I am at the moment, but I do like myself to some degree.
And as I go on living, I hope to gradually become someone I like a little more, each day.
Swift