Is it better to care deeply about something or to remain emotionally detached?

I believe that caring deeply about something is the key to doing it well. If you’re truly passionate about it, then you will do great things with it, no matter what. Great scientists devoted all their time to making new discoveries and making things. They sacrificed things and sometimes even put their health in jeopardy. Why wouldn’t emotional attachment to what you’re doing or working on be the best way to make even more worthwhile?

You might argue that being emotionally involved in your work clouds your judgment, but I don’t think it does. It might cloud your judgment as to other things-you might forget to eat or something- but not your judgment as to what your focus is upon. It becomes your baby. You coddle it. Nights become sleepless because you’re tending to every thing that might need to be done. While everything else in your life might become hazy, your project is a clear spot.

Emotional detachment from your work means it’s not a top priority. You might say that it isn’t a top priority, that there are many things more important. Air, for example. There is no shortage of air, don’t worry about that. Water and food, on the other hand, are something to worry about a tad. I’m quite sure that only a complete imbecile would totally forgo food and water, anyways. Everyone knows you need it. Besides, you’d pass out from lack of either, so it’d be important to anyone who actually wishes to work at what they do.

Also, I don’t think that you really care about the work if there isn’t any emotion in it. You can’t be totally emotionally detached from it and make any progress. If it doesn’t mean anything to you, then that’s just it. You don’t care about it. It. Can’t. Be. Important. If. You. Have. No. Emotion. Towards. It. I can’t make this point strong enough.

As I said, you have to have at least a little emotional attachment to it, otherwise it’s just some hoo hah that you’re forced to do. The great discoveries of this world were made by people who put their heart and soul into what they were doing. (I am aware that there are exceptions…) I shall leave you with this:

“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Do we learn more from finding out that we have made mistakes or from our successful actions?

Do we learn more from our mistakes or from our success? I believe from our mistakes, because when we mess up, we want to fix it and make it better, and then later on we know not to mess up like that again.

We don’t necessarily learn immediately after we make the mistake. We have to take time to think about it. Just like if you were to run a marathon and win, you wouldn’t even totally grasp what’s happening until after you caught your breath.

But… How are we to know we are truly making a mistake? We only have one life, so how do we know what is actually the right thing to want or to do if we can’t do it all to see what turns out the best? You can’t simply trust the others opinions on the matter, because they aren’t you. You most likely couldn’t make an accurate guess as to what you would do yourself, because you haven’t done it yet. You might react completely different than you think you would, most likely because we have a warped image of ourselves in our mind that isn’t really us at all.

How are you to tell whether or not the mistake has made you smarter, or a better person? Some people are complete idiots who make the same mistake over and over, but never learn. Maybe the failure make you bitter. Besides, who can say what makes a good person? We, as people, have a right to do whatever we like (outside of adultery and murder, because that is flipping terrible).

But, I do think that we can make ourselves what we consider to be better if we ‘learn’ from our mistakes. It’s really all in our head. =D