Head vs heart

I have always lived inside my head. Or more accurately, I’ve been accused of thinking too much about stuff. I’ve been admonished to use my heart more, by which I assume what was meant was that I should be more in touch with feelings, and use feelings to guide my decisions.

This seems to me to be just silly, assuming I really understand what these (undoubtedly) well-wishing people mean. A “feeling” is pretty much synonymous with a hunch. So would that mean that, rather than critically evaluating a potential action, weighing pros and cons, it would be better to go with hunches? I think not. Examining hunches, now that might be productive; but that would mean that we’re back to critical evaluation of pros and cons and I’m “back in my head.”

Maybe what was really meant was that I tend to over-analyze things. And I admit that “paralysis by analysis” is something I worry about; knowing when it’s time to stop thinking and start acting is a skill that I could work on.

But that’s not the same thing. It seemed almost like that “thinking” was viewed negatively. This baffles me. How could the development and application of critical thinking skills be a bad thing?

I have a friend who’s a computer programmer. He told me one time that he sees things in black and white, either/or, ones and zeroes. I see things in shades of grey. Most things to me are not absolutes: right or wrong, good or bad. I can see both sides of a debate fairly quickly if I want to. But for me what happens is that, after looking at all the various facts and positions, I come to a conclusion. I assume then, that if people have access to the same facts that I do, they would naturally come to the same conclusion that I have. When they don’t, I figure that they must have access to different facts, or that they place different weights on them that I do.

What this process leads to sometimes (unfortunately) is an unwillingness to act, because I’m not sure I’ve got enough information to make the “right” decision. So I gather more data. But that obviously has its downside; how to know when there’s enough information to make the right decision?

My friend’s solution to that is to (metaphorically) look out the window at any given time, and with the information that is available at that time, make his decision. He then moves ahead to play out that decision until it comes time to make another decision, and so forth.

While I think there’s merit to that process, it seems risky; what if gathering just a little bit more information would substantively change the decision and its associated action?

But there I am inside my head again.