I’ve been observing the dichotomy of these two emotions every time I’m faced with hard binary decisions. The idea of this dichotomy is based on the book ‘A Return to Love’ whose premise is that one should act on love, not fear. I’m yet to read the book but the idea has been playing on my mind ever since Rebecca recommended it to me.

I’m fascinated by this idea because it presents what seems like the easiest decision making model. And I wonder if it’s optimal.

I’ve been experimenting with it in the recent past and have observed some patterns.

When faced with a hard decision, the initial emotion that gets evoked in me is fear. Fear of judgement when I consider following my urge to hang upside down on the subway bars. Fear of rejection when I’m trying to decide if I should approach a woman I’m attracted to. You get the drift.

When I don’t act on the fear, it subsides over time. The rate at which it subsides depends upon how much I crave a specific end result, how much I’ve meditated in the recent past and how much the event has triggered a ‘past active role’ (to borrow terminology from SCT — more on SCT later, but hat tip to Swati for introducing me to it).

If I choose not to act on fear, it subsides. Once it subsides and I think about the same scenario again, I notice love (or compassion) emerge and a possible action materialize.

I then use a couple of tests to vet the action against my people pleasing nature and to test the level of Truth in the action. The idea of these tests is to ensure that I’m not acting to please and that I’m acting because the action resonates with me.

For the former, I try to observe whether I want a specific response from the person. Eg. telling someone I care about them because I think they’ll like hearing it or putting up a post because I want the likes ;) If I find myself being equanimous to the response, then the action has passed the first test.

For the latter, I try to observe if it aligns with my axioms. This is trickier because I wonder how much of it is just pure intellectual rationalization and because the axioms themselves are evolving.

So far, I have liked this decision model for how fast it is to execute. I’m not sure how to evaluate its optimality. I do think that love has a compounding behavior. It creates positive feedback loops in all the systems it seeps into. It reminds me of a quote from Naval Ravikant -

All the benefits in life come from compound interest — money, relationships, habits — anything of importance.

Jan 2019

Building on top of this framework, I realized a distinct difference between these two modes of taking actions.

The hypothesis is that actions can be classified as being sourced from a place of Love or a place of Fear. The recommended steps in this framework are:

1. Notice the intention to act
2. Gauge whether the action you are feeling inclined to perform is from a place of Love or Fear
3. Act, if it is from a place of Love. Don’t act otherwise.

What I realized today is that these two modes differ in how they focus attention.

When I act out of Love, my attention is focussed outwards. I feel stable. Secure.

When I act out of Fear, my attention is focussed inwards. My fight or flight response is activated. I feel defensive. I have the urge to protect myself.

This difference in where my attention is focussed causes a huge difference in my ability to listen. Listen to words. To body language cues. To the emotion that is being sub-communicated. And respond to that instead of acting on my inner fight or flight response. The ability to listen is the main determining factor of utility of conversations — so the implication here is that acting on Love is optimal for better conversations and thereby better relationships.

This observation applies to scenarios where I’m conversing with someone. In such conversations, when I’ve noticed my desire to say something out of Fear, I’ve chosen not to and instead gone silent. This has led to some odd silences which would leave my conversation partner confused as I wait for the Fear to subside. I’ve since found a better strategy to account for this silence. I note the Fear. Say it out loud. And seen it dissipate. When I started noting Fear out loud, I’d find myself wrapping it up in disclaimers — “I don’t like this aspect of my personality but…”, “I’m noticing this Fear and I’m not happy with it but…”. Now I realize that these disclaimers themselves are an act of Fear. They are sourced from the Fear of being judged. More pragmatically, they are also time inefficient. Stating the Fear fully is the best way to disarm it and bring yourself back to Love. Accepting my Fears fully is a way of showing myself Love.