While there are certainly many things that I could critique about the liberal arts education here at Valpo, I think one of the most unsung benefits has been learning how to guard one’s heart. What is great about this little aphorism is that it has a range of meaning, depending on how one chooses to interpret it. To generalize, I take it to mean that we ought to be careful what we let occupy our emotions. Reason need not apply. While there are many great virtues that can be exalted by the appropriate exercise of reason, our emotions are something else entirely.
Our hearts have limited emotional bandwidth. It’s important to make sure that the subjects we let ourselves care about are things we can actually affect. Many of us get into squabbles with people who are far too emotionally invested into a topic to have any meaningful conversation. Our emotions, rightfully, cloud our judgment on a given topic. While it may seem backwards for a liberal education to lead one to the notion that our emotions are fundamental to our reasoning, I haven’t met anyone who this isn’t the case for. We only care to craft strong arguments for those subjects which we have an emotional interest in.
This leads me back to the guarding of the heart. It is surprisingly easy to fall into the trap of caring about too much, particularly those topics which we have little control over. Instead of empowering us, our hearts hurt us in these moments. By instead restricting what we get emotionally invested in, our faculties of reason are much more effective at both persuading ourselves and others about their importance.
This lesson, I think, has been one of the most valuable I’ve been able to really reflect on from undergrad. It’s maxim serves as a good reminder to regularly have emotional litmus tests on anything that affects us emotionally. While I’m not sure whether or not to credit Christ College for this particular thought, the influence of the readings in Christ College absolutely has played a part. Additionally, there are many social circumstances too where this thought has either been implicit in people’s behavior, or rather explicit in others.
Thinking about the liberal arts college experience as a whole, that while there are certainly many, and I do mean many, frustrations that inevitably happen there are those few diamonds in the rough. Such as those random required classes that no one really wants to take, but are forced to for the degree, these are sometimes the classes that provide the oyster that can either outright give, or lead you to, a little pearl of wisdom. The collecting of these pearls, and the subsequent sharing of them, is the crux of liberal education.
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