REASONING – “THE REASONS”

REASONING – A word with which all of are familiar, a word with which we deal in our day to day life.

We are always involved in reasoning for something or other, be it what to eat, what to wear, where to go, what to do, what to buy, what to say & the list goes on.

Today I would like to focus on the reasoning for “REASONS”.

REASON – “An explanation, justification, logical thinking & understanding for an action or event.”

Every rational thinker will always apply reason to & for everything. In fact, we all adopt rational approach for most of the things in our lives. But the question arises- Why & How these reasons impact our decisions, how they guide us on what to do and what not to do?

Are reasons just a medium/ path to reach our pre-defined / desired destination? Or they serve as guide which tells us which path to follow?

Reasoning is actually helping us in taking decisions & in attaining our goals, our targets, our focal points. It is these goals which lead us to land up in the process of reasoning.

For instance, when you decide to become an engineer, you have a goal in front of you & to achieve this goal you find a reason to pursue a degree in engineering.

When you decide to have lunch, you have the desire to eat (may be for hunger, may be for your taste buds) & then you find a reason to decide what to eat?

David Hume’s quote is the best fit here:

“REASONS IS, AND OUGHT ONLY TO BE THE SLAVE OF THE PASSIONS, AND CAN NEVER PRETEND TO ANY OTHER OFFICE THAN TO SERVE AND OBEY THEM.”

So, it’s our desires/ passions that gives us a destination & thereafter, we start finding reasons to reach that. These reasons give shape to our actions.

For fulfilling our wishes / desires & reaching our goals we start questioning ourselves? We start analyzing, why, where, what, how & when? With answer to every question, we start getting reasons & paths & we start deciding our action plan.

Leaving apart, the impulsive / sensory reflexes, where our body responds much faster than we think, all other actions are guided by some reasoning behind them.

There is always some logic, some justification, and some explanation for what we do.

But, everyone has different reasons for same circumstances. All of us have different priorities, preferences & tastes. So, even when we feel that we are thinking & analyzing with our best ability, it does not mean that we are always reaching the best or correct judgment. Every action has reasoning but every reason does not reach the same conclusion. This is what makes this world so complex & diversified. Even when we talk on some general issues, where we want to have a universal answer, we are unable to reach a well agreed conclusion. Every individual has a unique way thinking, a different perception & viewpoint. We all do reasoning, but we reach the conclusion that appeals us the most.

We choose the path that seems most comfortable to us i.e., we act in a way which helps us in driving us towards our desires.

As the reasons are not a result of honest & logical understanding but in fact the slave of our own desires, we all tend to behave differently.

So, in a nutshell we can conclude, it is not the logic, it is not the circumstances, it is not the right or wrong concept, it is actually the “REASONS” which tell us what we ought to do? And, these “REASONS” show us the way as per our “DESIRES”. So, we ought to do what we like, we ought to do what we want , we ought to do what we feel comfortable, we ought to do what we enjoy, but for all these questions we find an explanation in the form of “REASONS”, we justify each & everything with a rational approach & thereafter act accordingly.

“REASONS TELL US HOW TO GET WHAT WE WANT”.

And what we want is told to us by our feelings/ desires.

Reasons help us in reaching an agreement to behave / act in a particular manner.

But, at times we must have heard of “Irrational” behavior also. Although we say that reason is a way of rational thinking, but in my view “irrational” responses are also a result of reasons. Yes, at times we have some desire but we are unable to find a proper logic or explanation to fulfill it. Those are the times when we tend to think that everything does not need a reason & we move ahead to fulfill our desire. But, actually here also we are giving a reason, that “everything does not need a reason”.

So, this is the power of reason.

And this clarifies the strong relationship of reasons & actions.

Every move, every decision, and every action – everything is told to us by “REASONS”.