Otherwise known as: Gut Instinct / Intuition vs. Logic / Reasoning

Most people that either know me or are acquainted with me would know that most of my decision making is typically borne thorough analysis. I spent a fair amount of my life using logic and reasoning as a basis towards decision making, that no matter what my instinct said about certain paths, my mind told me to give things a chance, wait things out, etc. What ended up happening was that I saw myself taking the high road quite a bit and by waiting things out I was unhappy… I wasn’t taking risks so I lost the spontaneity of my life. So I started listening my gut instinct and intuition more.

What became immediately apparent by changing this mentality was that a lot of life’s dramas – socially – seemed to have melted away. The stress that came with the internal war between my head and my heart disappeared. I became much more content with life and with the people in it, so I started finding ways to balance when to use logic and reasoning in my decision making versus using gut instinct and intuition.

Somehow, over the course of the past decade, I have learned how and when to use logic/reasoning and how and when to use gut instinct/intuition. In fact it has gotten to the point where a friend of mine have said: “You are the most compelling devil’s advocate: you are presenting a reasoned logical argument as to why I should go with gut instinct and rather than logic and reason.” I can be very persuasive when I want to be… apparently.

Before I continue with this post… let me explain what I am planning to do. This first post of three will be something of my own thoughts of logic/reasoning vs gut instinct/intuition and how I have come to use it in everyday life.

Then the next two posts will be my thoughts of two literary pieces that I have read in my lifetime and how they reflect or change my life and way of thinking:
Part Two – Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
Part Three – Think!: Why Crucial Decisions Can’t be Made in the Blink of an Eye by Michael LeGault

Continue reading →