A week has past since my last “post for…” and I want to answer the question, “How do you feel about how you spent your day?”
I feel pretty good. This week has been a good restoring week. I’ve reconnected with my wife and my church and my habits and my home.
Something that is resonating with me though as I consider this question is that there is a difference between feeling something, thinking something and believing something. Usually the difference is in the object of the feeling/thinking/believing, but it is ultimately in the action done by the subject to the object.
When a person feels, he/she is perceiving, sensing, or experiencing. Many post-moderns think with their feelings. But feeling is not thinking.
When a person thinks, he/she is concluding, considering, recalling, imagining. This is the realm of opinion. It overlaps with feeling in that the moment after a person feels something, he/she thinks about the feelings he/she has had. So, a person might feel sick to his/her stomach and thereby thinks that he/she is sick to his/her stomach.
When a person believes, he/she is affirming credence, having faith, holding as true, maintaining conviction. Continuing our example, the person who thinks that he/she is sick, also believes he/she is sick. However, usually beliefs are not only opinions that have been thought, but they are thoughts that have been held through opposition. Such that after examinations revealing there is no problem with our example’s stomach, he/she considers his/her feelings about his/her stomach’s state and re-affirms his or her belief that he/she is indeed sick to his/her stomach.
So, when I ask, “How do you feel about how you spent your day?” I’m not considering how I spent the day really. I’m not affirming a belief about how I spent the day. I am merely putting into words how I perceive or sense the quality of the day(s) in question.
Thus, my answers can and will be rather short – although length is allowed, because feelings can be deep.
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