Here is a tiny piece of a huge topic – emotions. In my experience it is the one topic amongst friends, acquaintances and business colleagues that has the power to divide. Divide because, as the title suggests, some people think that they don’t have much to do with the emotional side of life – by choice. Some believe that opting-out of considering the emotional component of dealing with people will make life simpler and more logical – more reliable. In the next few lines I want to explore why someone would want to change this part of their lives to become more emotionally engaged.

Advantages to keeping emotions out of play.

1. I don’t waste time worrying about the “what ifs?”. This means that I can make mistakes that affect other people and yet keep on acting decisively and with the self-assurance of the unencumbered. I can ‘crack on’ with my to do list and let someone else worry about the fluffy stuff.

2. It’s easy to focus on the task. So even if I upset someone, I find it easy and natural to turn a ‘blind eye’ and to get on with whatever I was trying to achieve knowing full well that if anyone does get ‘a bit offended’ they’ll soon get over it and the operational result will speak for itself – well, it’s all about cost/benefit isn’t it?

3. Not much can ruin my day (well not for very long). This means that I can keep going longer than anyone else in emotional situations – I have terrific stamina when the going gets tough. I come out of the other side of big arguments and negotiations in great shape and with some satisfaction because I have been able to stand back and not get involved when everybody else was becoming irrational.

The flip side.

When I opt out of ‘doing emotions’ I am not going it alone – I take you with me – to a place to which you perhaps don’t want to go. I take you to where emotions are managed by my agenda (emotions not welcome). Far from helping you to ‘get over’ your feelings, my seizing control of the whole situation only serves to magnify them, rendering you less rational, me even less involved and causing us both to have a more difficult conversation.

Doing the minimum – it can work.

Acknowledgement changes us. Even if I cannot bring myself to buy-in to the whole emotions piece, for whatever reason I might harbour, being able to notice when I am opting out of other peoples’ feelings feeling gives me the chance to remind myself to join in again and to help in some small way. For example, if I see that a person with whom I am arguing is getting beyond their comfortable state then I can at least choose to keep my mouth shut; I can withdraw gracefully from the interaction to prevent further stoking up their negative state. That constitutes helpful action. It’s something. But if I then decide that I really want to take things a step further in helping the conversation back onto the tracks, I might decide to let them know that I have noticed their state – “you seem… annoyed…”.

What could be easier?

No matter where you and I are on the continuum of emotionality, we can both do something to help – even if it is to stay quiet whilst the other person gets on with handling what is happening to them. To deny ourselves the opportunity to make use of our innate capacity to pick up on emotions in daily events, is of course, a completely OK thing to do – it’s our choice. We just need to be careful not to stop others around us from taking their own emotions into account. Paradoxically though, by choosing to opt-out of the emotional dimension whilst at the same time trying not to be actively obstructive might turn out to be harder work than opting-in completely.