A common battle that I often find myself facing is the battle between logic vs. emotion.
I consider myself to be a fairly logical individual for the sheer fact that I have had plenty of time to think about things deeply in my life.
I have spent a majority of my life alone and when you have nothing of the outside world to distract you, you are just left with you and your thoughts.
I have found peace in being alone and I genuinely value my time and my ability to think.
I have always been a structured individual who needs to know what I am doing, when I am doing it, and where I will be doing it - I am not one who particularly likes surprises as a result of this. It's true, I wont go somewhere if I have no idea where I am going, so don't ask me to go anywhere or do anything unless I know what to expect.
Living a structured lifestyle has allowed me to keep my priorities in line and not fault to living a life of degeneracy.
Sure, as I have said before that I have done things in my life that I am not particularly proud of - it doesn't go without mentioning that I have had plenty of time to think about the things I have done wrong, take full accountability and responsibility for my actions, and move on from it.
This is truly what having time alone will teach you.
You will learn more about yourself, your failures, your values, and everything that makes you who you are by spending more time alone and having the time to think.
One thing that I personally struggle with is constantly being torn between my logical side and my humanistic emotional side.
Having too much time alone can be a blessing and a curse, especially when you get used to always having to do things your own way.
It presents a bit of a challenge when you do decide to allow someone into your life to spend your time with when you have valued your own time for so long.
I am extremely particular with who I choose to spend my time with. If I cannot learn or get better in some facet of my life with the people I am around, then I will not be around them for long.
The only direction I see my life going is forward and if I cannot be around people that make me want to be a better man, then I have no time for them.
Many times I often find myself in the battle between being overly logical and not allowing myself to feel things.
This is a true blessing and a curse because when you value your ability to think, you sometimes close yourself off from being able to be human and feel things because you over analyze practically everything.
This is all due to personal insecurities that I have dealt with in my life.
Oftentimes, when you over analyze things, it creates an additional layer of anxiety as if you have too many options as to how to deal with something. This added layer of anxiety is a conflict that is self-inflicted and creates mental strain.
Everyone has been through shit that forces them to put up walls and barriers internally and until one learns how to deal with their own insecurities, they will continue to have subconscious effects on how one operates.
As a man, it is extremely important to have control over your own emotions but not so much control that you force yourself to feel nothing at all.
Not being able to live the true human experience is a lifeless existence.
Part of being human is having to deal with pain and sacrifice, especially if one plans on being able to make a genuine impact on those around them.
Men are biologically hardwired to be more logical than women. Woman were created to be more emotional of the two, which is why it is important that a man have control over his own emotions if he is ever going to be able to take care of a woman.
It is incredibly easy for emotions to have direct control over your own thoughts - it takes work being able to separate your emotions from your thoughts to make logical decisions. This is why you must be able to distinguish the difference between making a logical decision versus making an emotional decision.
I read a great book called "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. This book outlined the difference between logical and emotional thinking.
Most humans today constantly live in an emotional state when making their decisions. It takes the path of least resistance to make a decision from an emotional state because it is a reactive state-of-mind. Peoples thoughts and feelings are directly correlated to the things the see and consume around them.
There is a small percentage of humans that truly understand what it means to think about things logically.
Thinking logically is a much slower process for the simple fact that you have to tune out the outside noise of the world around you, be able to separate your emotions, and formulate a decision.
It is naturally harder for a woman to think logically because they are more emotional than men. I am not saying they don't have the ability, but unless a woman is aware of her emotions and why she feels the way she does, thinking logically can be a bit of a challenge.
As I stated above, this is why it is important for men to be men and be the logical ones so that women don't HAVE to.
A man needs to be able to think critically but also allow himself to live in the moment and feel all of what God gave to him - his woman, his family, his animals, whatever it is.
I have learned that I can fully live in the moment when I am at peace. Whether I am with the small group of people that I genuinely care about, training horses, or spending time with my animals.
That feeling of peace is something that I think everyone wants but not everyone knows how to get.
There are always going to be things in your life that you have to do that you don't want to do, especially as a man.
However, when it comes to having the right people around you that bring you peace and make you strong, that is fully something that is within your control and something you must be able to separate your logic and emotion from when choosing these kinds of people.
As humans, we have direct control over how things make us feel just from having a clear state-of-mind.
We have direct control of our environment, the people around us, and how we choose to operate within the world.
If we can all work together to find peace, then we can all enjoy the fruits of what life has to offer.