Decided emotionally, rationalized logically

Humans are SO emotional.

I keep getting reminded of this, and recently I heard a great quote that I loved — it puts the whole thing in one line:

Humans make decisions emotionally and rationalize them logically.

The decision comes first. The reasons come after. Once you hear it, you start seeing it everywhere — in arguments, in big life choices, in the takes people defend the hardest.

And I mean, I’m kinda guilty of it also. I’ve made plenty of decisions with my gut and then assembled the logical case afterward. I’m not writing this from above anybody.

Here’s the part I can’t settle, though. I still don’t know if I’m convinced it was always like this, or if I’m only like it now. Maybe humans have been emotion-first forever and I just got old enough to notice. Or maybe something about right now is different. I genuinely go back and forth.

Either way, the thing that gets me is this: society has come as far as it has. All the progress, all the information, all the education — and it still just feels like a lot for people to be this emotional at this point. You’d think we’d have closed some of that gap by now.

I don’t know which answer it is yet. I’m mostly just sitting with the quote.