The nasty, sticky subject of getting emotional is often likened to the follies of youth or the drunkeness of a life that could better be spent on more ‘productive’ hobbies.

Emotions are for children, troubled youth and perhaps a select group of poets and artists who need to tap on that resource to dig for inspiration. You and I? We’re regular, working folk. Who has the time for emotions these days?

You come to a point where you don’t have the time to be sad and inward-looking anymore. I once gave someone the license to be emotional too—albeit just for a short period before I was filed away under the next ‘to do’.

Getting emotional is altogether too self-indulgent a past time. Like taking a moment to listen—no, really listen—to all the different instruments as they cascade in and out of a piece of music, or savouring a really good morsel of chocolate, letting the sweetness and bitter notes dance upon your tongue.

Getting emotional is something like that. What used to be a vast ocean you dove into, you now look at and file it away because you don’t have the time to get out, dry yourself and get a hot shower before looking for a change of clothes. Cleaning up takes far too much time to justify the activity.

And so you don’t. It’s there, you’ll just…’get to it’. And when things grind to a halt as you accidentally trip and fall headlong into a body of tears, you think, oh, what a bother!

Now, I’ll have to quickly get up and return to my next appointment, you say, glancing around as if looking for the one who pushed you into the pool.

How juvenile the prank, you think. What a waste of time that was.