Previous Page: Awareness Component
The second component of decision making we will discuss is that of feelings. Feelings are our physical and mental sensations. Feelings include emotions, desires, conscience, and physical sensations, such as pain or hunger. Emotions are mental sensations such as anger, fear (including anxiety), exhilaration, and sorrow. Emotions, although sometimes causing physical effects, are actually experienced or “felt” mentally. For instance, mental anguish may produce tears, but the anguish itself is experienced mentally. This does not, however, make the experience any less real. While some individuals have learned to stifle their emotions, they still experience them ~ they are still real.
Desires are sensations of wanting or liking, and include yearning and longing. Desires are also experienced mentally. For example, infatuation or ‘puppy love’ is a desire for another person which may result in an aching feeling which is not physical. Desires take many forms. One can desire material objects such as clothes, cars and houses. One can desire experiences such as fishing or skiing. Or one’s desires can be categorized by the concepts such as excitement, escape, approval or power. Our desires can be made up of all three areas intertwining, e.g., one may desire a fancy car to drive fast for excitement.
One common element of all desires is their demand to be gratified. The strength of the demand varies from person to person and from desire to desire. For instance, one person may do anything to gratify his desire for approval, while another’s desire for approval is overridden by his desire to become wealthy. Our desires can be the driving force underlying much of our activity. In fact, many times strong desires are confused with needs. Then one justifies his actions upon these misperceived needs.
One’s conscience is his sense or feeling of right and wrong. Again this is an area of mental sensation. One’s conscience, if not dulled, will sound an alarm when one perceives his action is inconsistent with his beliefs. The ‘guilty’ feeling one experiences when he does something he perceives as wrong is one way the conscience is active. Of course, the more one indulges in an activity he perceives as wrong, the less his conscience will ‘bother’ him, until he reaches the point where his conscience becomes dull in that area. This often results when one’s desire for the activity (or the results of the activity) overrides his feelings of guilt. The guilty feeling can be later activated by fresh, strong evidence that the activity is wrong. Here again, the desire to participate in the activity may override the evidence and the conscience will become deadened in that particular area.
Keep in mind that a person’s feelings of right and wrong are not necessarily accurate (Disney’s Jiminy Cricket had this wrong). Many things affect one’s conscience, including education and previous decisions and their perceived results. One’s sense of right and wrong can be distorted or enhanced by one’s education. In group decision making, many conflicts may arise as to whose conscience to use as a guide to right and wrong. This is especially true when there is a great diversity in the types of education received by each individual in a group. Unless we learn to apply a proper standard to our decision making, we will be at a loss to reconcile the various views and opinions we encounter. Using various individual standards of conscience or lack of conscience in society leads to lawlessness. This in turn leads to greater controls on the individuals in society, and the resultant loss of freedom.
Feelings are only indirectly and many times ineffectively controlled by an individual. Feelings are controlled by one’s actions, thoughts or external actions. In other words, we do not ‘feel good’ just because we make a decision to feel good. We must attempt to think of something or do something that makes us feel good. It might be the act of buying new clothes or going for a walk or even smoking for some. Also, someone else’s actions may stir feelings in us such as anger. When angered, we do not simply decide not to be angry; we must do something or think of something to try to eliminate our anger.
The person whose feelings are aroused is not always successful in alleviating his feelings. This can be frustrating, and the frustration, in turn, produces more unwanted feelings. Some may turn to alcohol or other drugs to try to change or hide their feelings. These will produce unwanted, and sometimes uncontrollable, feelings which appear after the influence has worn away.
Feelings can be easily distorted or inflated. One may ‘feel’ insulted when no insult was intended or even existed. The feelings of frustration in one area may bring out the feeling of anger in another. Often this is accompanied by an outburst of anger that leaves others wondering how such an insignificant act (the one visible to them) could produce such an outburst. Feelings of despair and depression can become greatly exaggerated by one who views this as a method of gaining the attention or pity of others. Excitement is actually a distortion of feelings. The excited feelings can reach a point beyond which the individual has control of them. Various actions at rock concerts or at demonstrations are examples of out of control excitement.
Feelings can be unstable and inconsistent with one another. A feeling may come and go without a person being aware of its cause. Or feeling derived from an activity or a thought may not be as strong the next time one participates in the same activity or has the same thought. Feelings are often inconsistent. One may desire to be with a person while at the same time being angered at his actions. Someone desiring the approval of others may reach the point of taking actions he desires not to take. We have all heard of the expression ‘mixed feelings’ with regard to some decision. These mixed feelings lead to an internal conflict if not properly handled. Some feelings trigger other inconsistent feelings. As previously mentioned, the desire to do a certain activity can cause feelings of guilt. Anxiety may be caused by a desire to impress others. The list goes on and on.
Not only can feelings be inconsistent with one another, they are not necessarily consistent with reality. They are not based on reason and truth. One’s sense (feeling) of confidence may be inconsistent with reasonable confidence. The ‘confident’ person may believe he knows something that leads to a feeling of confidence when in reality his knowledge is too inadequate to be useful. This may eventually lead to feelings of embarrassment or loss of confidence in other areas. In the same way, one may have the sensation of fear or anxiety when no real basis for it exists. This is not to say the feelings are not real, it is their basis that may not be real.
The knowledge of feelings in one’s self and in others is extremely important in the decision making process. Feelings can and do affect decisions. Because of their unreliability, however, they are a poor standard upon which to base a decision. Feelings often cloud the decision making process rather than enhance it. One must be able to make accurate decisions and act upon them without regard to his own feelings. Otherwise, the consequences of wrong decisions, when realized, will produce feelings such as futility, misery and hopelessness. Eventually, a decision based on a desire will produce a consequence that is inconsistent with the same or another desire. For instance, the man who plays golf to relax becomes frustrated because his game is ‘off.’ Or, the parent who disregards the speed limit in the presence of his child teaches his child to disrespect authority affecting the child’s behavior.
The decision making component of feelings is the most difficult area for the decision maker. Once the first decision is made pursuant to a feeling, it becomes easier to make the next decision on feelings and so on until one’s only basis for decisions is feelings. Further, we are all inclined to live to gratify our desires, to pursue good feelings and to attempt to escape bad feelings, regardless of what is right or wrong. These inclinations, combined with the increasing ease of making decisions to carry them out, forms a barrier to accurate decision making. The barrier can be overcome.
Emotions, desires, conscience, and physical sensations make up the decision making component of feelings. We must know of our feelings and how they interact with the other components of in order to make accurate decisions. We must be aware and alert to feelings in others and the causes of those feelings when they can be discerned. This will give us a greater opportunity to communicate and help one another reach accurate conclusions.
