Rationality

There are moments in life when you have to make a big decision, however, your emotions and ego block your mind. You cannot think clearly, and you see everything the way you want them to be, but the reality is on the exact opposite side. If you just rely on yourself and float in your thoughts, you are gonna drown at the very bottom of these thoughts. There is no way out of your doubts and uncertainty, it either makes you go crazy or never let you get in touch with reality.

You are trapped in a box created by you, and you cannot see out of the box, all you need is to break the wall and see outside of the box. But not everybody is strong enough to overcome their fears of what they are about to see and embrace the reality. These are the exact moments that friends were created for, you need someone that sees outside the box. If you consult the situation with someone else, someone you trust, you can see through his eyes and step by step see the light of reality.

A very familiar example is a broken relationship. I have seen many people get emotional when the other person leaves them or cheat on them after they have been in a relationship for a while. They do not want to believe that either the other side does not want them, or they cannot trust the other side anymore. They see through the eyes of their memories and all the good moments they had together. The first thing they do is not letting the other side go, as the low self-confidence created by the rejection makes them hold on to that person harder. It gets harder and harder for them to believe the other side is cheated on them or does not want them, what they want to believe is that everything is back to normal and they can fix things. They tend to believe every lies that the other side is telling them, they can be easily played. They can survive if a friend come to the scene and open their eyes to their reality, it feels awful but they have to do what has to be done.

The main question here is how to detect these moments ? How to stay in touch with reality all the time and keep emotions away? What should you do after you detected you trapped in a box? how can you see outside of the box with your own power and without getting any help from someone else? What will be the possible practice to strengthen this ability?

EDIT: Also, check the following: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/frontal-cortex/2012/06/daniel-kahneman-bias-studies.html