The Gswede term is one of my favorites and difficult for most people to understand or execute properly . I referenced it in my March 23, 2008 article titled "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?.
Definition for "Take the EMOTION out of it"
For important decisions in life (marriage, car/house purchase, where to live, stocks/401K, relationships, friendships, etc) one should "Take the Emotion out it" in order to properly evaluate the huge step you are about to take. It requires "stepping outside of yourself" and looking at all the other elements regarding the decision WITHOUT the emotion and determining if your decision is a wise one. It should be a decision based in reality not emotion.
An emotional attachment to someone or something often makes a person forget about the potential downside and only focus on the upside. Emotion is a great thing but it has to be used with caution. Emotion with wise decision making is the best way to live life and often leads to success. Emotion with unwise decisions will give you a life at best, decent and at worst, miserable beyond belief. Who really wants the latter?
What my term DOES NOT mean is that you take ALL emotion out of the situation. Just every now and then. It is imperative that it at least be done when the decision is about to be made.
Two close friends in New York City have the BEST emotion I have ever seen. They are a joy to be around but have made critical relationship mistakes because they sometimes couldn't "take the emotion out of it". These types of people often have the toughest time executing my philosophy because emotion has been essential to their success in life. One of them is doing well now and has learned from his mistakes. I fear the other is still letting emotion dominate his life and I worry about his future happiness with his family.
With the current housing crises in America, how many people bought homes on EMOTION when the economy was good and low interest rates were abundant? With the foreclosures in America doubling since last year, that question is easy to answer. Did they ever consider that rates might go up? Economy might sour? Doing a fixed rate instead of a variable rate? Many have lost or will lose homes because of the lack of "taking the emotion out of it". Some will never recover and will have the aforementioned life I spoke of earlier.
An American friend fell in love with a beautiful Swedish woman and based on emotion, moved to Stockholm, Sweden. He never considered how tough life might be for a foreigner or how anti-foreigner many Swedish companies are or a host of other important things about moving here. Emotion ruled his decision. His time in Sweden has been tremendously rough and I don't foresee it improving.
Emotion got the best of me (only once) with a woman I was dating in the 90's. She was dynamic in every sense of the word and made my knees weak and my judgement cloudy on more than one occasion. I was emotionally attached. True to Gswede nature, I was able to "take the emotion out of it" every now and then and her true colors (i.e. often spoke negatively about her father but never said why) peaked through. They were hard to see but without removing the emotion from time to time, they would have been impossible to locate.
Once, she went crazy with a slight look of the devil in her eye. It was scary! After that display, I knew I could never be with someone who had what I considered demons from childhood. She now has children by different fathers and I cannot imagine that her life is what she planned it to be.
If you still don't understand my term or why it is important, consider for a moment women who are beaten by their husbands. As you probably know, many of the them stay in relationships until they are heinously battered or sometimes killed. Why? Emotion. They are not able to pull away until they "take the emotion out of it" and realize or someone helps them realize how destructive the characteristics of a wife beater are to a woman and her children.
Finally, a good friend in Stockholm understood my term promptly as his heart was aching for the woman he left in NYC. He knew they didn't belong together but emotion kept him tied to this woman and prevented him from moving on in life. I said to him one night at a basketball game, "can you try to take the emotion out of it and then see what you have"? He said, "if I do that, the decision is easy" and a burden seemed to be lifted from the satisfied look on his face. I think that moment helped him as he is loving life these days.
If you are not happy or your life is not advancing in the way you desire, chances are that emotion has ruled important decisions causing you to make unwise choices. Learning to channel your emotions wisely will help you avoid the needless drama that can:
a) make life difficult..... OR
b) waste precious time as life is short..... OR
c) cause tremendous pain in life.
Life is easier if you master the ability to "Take the Emotion out of it".
Don't be afraid to try it. You may be pleasantly surprised by the outcome.
Happy Gswede Sunday!
The emotion above is okay but for important life decisions, one must "Take the Emotion out of it", or risk the potentially dire consequences.
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