My inner monologue

This blog is essentially my inner monologue. The words I type on to the screen are my inner thoughts and feelings and the way I write is, I like to think, a reflection of my thought processes and how I articulate myself. An inner monologue is essentially that voice inside your head that talks to you every so often when deliberating a risky action, learning a script or deciding whether to go for the pizza with pancetta or with parmesan. I went for the pancetta and it was a mistake. But anywho, we all have some kind of inner voice that deliberates and questions our decisions (as a philosophy student I can totally argue against that and tell you your mind doesn't really exist or have any causal effect but that's besides the point) and yet more often than not we ignore this little voice.

One example of this would be yesterday. Yesterday was a fairly uneventful day. I met up with some friends for coffee, tried (and failed) to finish my coursework based on the technical difficulty of writers block, and I went to work to earn some monies. However, the voice at the back of my head was telling me to do something. I had been contemplating going out for a run at night. Being one of those insane people that actually quite enjoys running, I know I would've enjoyed this run and I also know that at about 9:00 last night the rainy skies cleared briefly and revealed the multitude of stars in the sky, glimmering from thousands of years in the past and were likely very dead. But anyway, I know this would have captured my imagination, inspired me to run harder and further and given me some well-needed perspective on my exam focused life. This is what the voice in the back of my head was telling me.

I ignored my inner monologue. I instead stayed inside, devoured a chocolate bunny rabbit (an oddly barbaric concept) and watched Forrest Gump with my sister. Forrest Gump happens to be one of my favourite films of all time and also nicely fits in with my History course, so I wasn't actually complaining too much. But, in saying this, I missed an opportunity. More often than not, your inner monologue is trying to tell you something important. Whether this is something mundane like going for a run or being lazy and watching Tom Hanks be his wonderful self, or whether it is a big moral decision you are about to make, you should listen to that voice in the back of your head because chances are it is begging you to follow the right moral decision, to act in the sensible way, or to act in the way that will maximise your happiness and give you the most fun experiences, rather than just the mundane.

The voice in the back of your head is YOU. It is not some external force you are fighting against to be rebellious, it is your own inner consciousness telling you how it think you should act. And yet we treat it as if it is a nagging parent. Listen to the voice. You have to be the one to live with yourself (quite literally) and if you go against your own head then you will be the one feeling regret or remorse if something goes wrong and you will only have yourself to blame because you didn't to yourself. Speaking from experience of this, that actually sounds quite insane. Not listening to YOURSELF seems like a very odd thing to do, though I completely understand going against what other people tell you because, let's face it, we are all a rebel without a cause.

This is not to say that you should ALWAYS listen to your head as sometimes your heart is giving you the right idea, but the voice in the back of your head is pointing you in the right direction and, whilst not always the preferable option, it may be the most logical or the one that will lead you to the greatest happiness in life.