What teaching Critical Thinking taught me?

I'm 35 years old adult. Married. Have two kids. Almost look like uncle because of my obesity. There are somethings I can't fix about how I think about the things that happen to me.

These four months have been transformational in many ways. One continued discourse in my logic and critical thinking class was how to address the problems with objectivity and without indulging yourself emotionally. Yuval Harari, Israeli historian, in his interview talks about two mental blocks in our mind, one that solves problems and other that manages emotions. Emotions must never be relevant when solving a problem. For years I thought this is mindset of capitalistic society and and attempt to make us numb about our emotions and sentiments. In these four months, we talked about various issues on sociology, politics, psychology, religion, economics and even with historical and philosophical lens - it becomes very obvious that emotions are sabotaging the entire narrative of analysis. Emotions are like colors, they change the reality and they affect how things are.

When I was teaching this to my undergraduate students, I had this uncomfortable realization that all my life I have headed by life by putting my emotions as priority. I can't imagine the collateral damage and waste of time on non-issues because of that.

We also have talked about why emotional intelligence is significant in dealing your personal issues. Managing emotions is art and we must teach to people who we love because they have destroyed themselves in the rage of emotions. Guilt. Jealousy. Arrogance and Insecurity. These are diseases and mental blocks in achieving clarity in life. 

The lesson that keep coming back to me and I refuse to learn is keeping your emotions private and guarding it is an act of superior mind. Also, we have to see problems as something independent than from our own self, you don't have to be obsessed with the problem and do commentary about the prospects it offers your intellectually. Obviously, some problems will amuse you and they are extremely appealing to your intellect in the form of abstraction, or mystery or spiritual enlightenment, but detaching yourself from the experience is extremely important and at any given time, you must be able to see what's the cost of continuously engaging with the problem for me.  Will it cost me my peace? will it disturb me? or will it beautify and sharpen me as organic intellectual? so, you see we also have to be selective about choosing our problems. Improve the quality of problems to be become the man of quality and man of sophistication. 

Half of the beauty of the man is in the way he speaks, and rest half lies in the mannerism in which he carries himself. Critical thinking will offer your insight, a perspective and a window to see yourself holistically- by living with in you, you should be able to get rid of yourself by excluding yourself, thats what critical thinking would do to you, and thats what these four months have taught me.