Emotional Editing

Ayushman Jamwal
There is too much communication in the world today. Messages, DMs, Emojis, FaceTime, Tweets, Likes, Comments and old school conversation has overloaded us with opinions about the world and primarily ourselves, as we talk at each other and not to each other. Emotional information is a mixed bag, a bright shade of grey as we stumble and struggle to ground ourselves, find a sliver of truth in the cacophony.
Working in one of the busiest newsrooms of the country has taught me one big life lesson – Editing. Similar to trimming, discarding and highlighting news in the unrelenting 24-hour news cycle, applying the same tools to the emotional information explosion in our lives is cathartic, and streamlines our hearts and minds.
Like countless seekers around the world, I have many arguments with my family and friends. The anger, outrage and temperature of those clashes, all emerge from a place of love, but good intentions are many times derailed and lost in the tone, tenor, word play and delivery of a quarrel. In a storm of semantics there is only chaos and frustration. For clarity, fulfilment and empowerment, we humans burdened with over-communication need to employ emotional editing.
Parents consumed by love and concern for their children give plenty of advice at every stage of growth. Bosses, colleagues and friends will shower you with comments on a slew of things from your work, to your appearance and habits. Many times wise and honest words tend to be mixed with negativity and disappointment, which does not help anyone, creating a wide chasm between intent and consequence.
It is difficult to be bullet-proof to negativity, especially coming from your loved ones and colleagues, but even with and without trust, emotional editing helps you sift through the noise to find a slice of truth to improve yourself. There are many reasons why the people around you may throw shade and deliver advice with passive-aggression, yet investigating those factors is an exhausting and futile process. If your intent is to be a better version of yourself, to boost your self-esteem, there is no harm in swallowing your pride, and find the truth mixed into the negativity.
In an era of unwritten and fluctuating social rules and information explosion, pursuit of self is a tedious process, but like science fiction actor Lindsay Wagner once said, ‘weed through the muck to find real beauty, the truth about yourself’. From affection to hate, all emotions we are confronted with and wade through have a kernel of reality about ourselves, our flaws and strengths. We can never be the best judges of who we are and what we are capable of. Just like bitter medicine, the truth in no matter what form is an empowering force of self-reflection.
Human interaction today is a walk on egg shells and reality is seldom realised or delivered plain and point blank. It is presented with a lot of baggage, but we have the power to unpack it, turn down the noise and digest it. Keep the people around you and walk across the spectrum of emotions. Just remember not to overload your heart and mind. Edit the emotions to be a more peaceful you.
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