The only real difference between us and the rest of the living world is our ability to make informed decisions.

Since this is a rather vast subject, I shall divide it into chapters.

1. From feeling to sentiment.

Something prompts us into action. Always. No matter whether we are aware of it or not, there is an underlying cause for each of our actions.
And when we speak about actions which imply our awareness, those causes penetrate our conscience as feelings.

We, more or less automatically, pull back our hands when they touch a hot stove. That is a reaction. Caused by a feeling.

Most of us – the able bodied, of course, would consider going into fire to save a loved one. Or a stranger. Even if pursuing that line of action might get us burned.
‘Going into fire’ – compared to ‘pulling back our hands’, implies making a decision. Which action – ‘making a decision’, is caused by a sentiment.

Sentiment being a feeling which has penetrated not only our conscience but our self-awareness as well.
We not only feel a sentiment, we relate to it. We’re not only aware of it, we elaborate on it.

Hence the difference between a reaction and a decision.
For as long as we allow ourselves to be driven by feelings, we only react to what’s going on around us.
If, and only when, we successfully transform feelings into sentiments we are able to actually decide. To control, to a degree, what’s happening in/to our lives.

To add some meaning to our, otherwise ‘mere’, existence.