In my life, I have been accused countless times of being unfeeling. I don’t cry often enough. I move on too fast. I compromise too little. Basically I don’t “act like a real woman.”At some point because it was brought up only a negative light, I was convinced that it was a character flaw that I needed to change. But first, I needed google to tell me if I was really acting like a man. So I took online quizzes like “Guess my gender” and “How much do I act like a man?” The answers came back inconclusive or otherwise skewed towards manliness. So with that I set out to be all woman. I didn’t go very far. I was sabotaged by my need to my analyses of everything. I weighed the pros and cons of thinking vs feeling. I did comprehensive research about successful people. I looked into the lives of the women who were asking me to be as soft as they were or the men who wanted me to be as soft as they like their women. And I discovered that I didn’t know a lot of successful people who weren’t apathetic on some level. That’s why many people complain about their bosses. Because humans are wired to slack on their jobs in preference to leisure while expecting great pay. And you must be tough to rein in their behavior and expectations. You can’t do that while accommodating everyone’s feelings. People say that women can now have it all. But a major condition to “having it all” is thinking more than you feel. The pursuit of career success-for women-is not for the faint-hearted. Something is bound to give; mostly relationships. So you can’t have a good career if you are unwilling to sacrifice your feelings on some level. The saving grace is that if you think more than you feel, you won’t allow yourself to be with someone who wants your dreams to take a back seat. I have discovered that people who feel more than they think often give more than they should. In time they realise that those who loved them for their soft and sacrificial nature only did so because it served their selfish purposes. Now they are hurting or stuck in bad situations or at the very worst contemplating suicide. These are the women who make excuses and even blame themselves for their husbands’ abusive behaviour. These are the good men who take the fall for their fraudulent bosses. These are people who are guilt-tripped into financing their spouses’ extravagant lifestyles. I don’t advocate for complete apathy. I only advocate for avoiding a situation where emotions control you. I’m saying that it pays to be the sort of person who won’t risk spending his life in jail because he couldn’t stop to think about the impact of firing a gunshot. He only thought to relieve his anger. It pays to think; is this worth it? How will it affect this one life I’ve been given?
