Topics of Taboo

Topics of taboo, such as religion, sexuality, and abortion are subjects that cause people to be opinionated and defensive; so much so, that it has become inappropriate to discuss them in some social settings. When expressing your views, if your stance is not firm or well researched your views may be torn to pieces and/or may even become so distorted you lose your argument. Because I have witnessed, and been the victim of verbal lashings, fortified in reasoning, I disagree with the claim that it does not make any real difference whether someone arrives at his or her views based on reasoning or not.

Reflecting upon the challenges that I have overcome, reasoning and logic have become tools that I am reliant on for survival. One challenge for me has been to create an aura of peace and humbleness around myself. I found that the people I surrounded myself with, have at times, been sources of negativity, and because of my perception of circumstances, faulty reasoning has lead me to disappointment.

In past experiences, I have relied on people to provide certain levels of peace for me instead of relying on myself, causing me to contend with anxiety, feelings of low self-esteem, confusion and anger. Sometimes my decisions were made irrationally, since I based them on my emotional state at the time. I felt, without reasoning, that this would bring me peace. My judgment betrayed me whenever I made emotional decisions instead of rational choices. I would always end up with the same result- NO PEACE. Slowly realizing that my well-being was my well-being, I began to create an atmosphere starting with my home that would uplift me, rather than bring me down. I used reasoning, the cognitive process of looking for reasons for beliefs, conclusions, actions and or feelings, to think more clearly and make better decisions. Not using reasoning would mean not having sound judgment or thought during my decision-making. In retrospect, I now understand that if decisions are not fully thought out, just saying you are unsure and will resume the conversation at a later time is much more logical and a better use of reasoning than arriving at your view half way.

Using life experience as my basis, reasoning and sound judgment has not always been used in my decisions. I stress the point that without reasoning you are leaving yourself open for avoidable challenges. In addition, if the circumstances involve other parties, using reasoning to evaluate how others