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The problem with control is that it doesn’t last. All of life is a choice. It is how you are going to react to the choices that you have made that really determine the outcome.
Like most emotions, it seems like all emotions are in some way a choice. The problem is that we aren’t usually aware of our choices. For example, when we wake up in the morning, we don’t usually think about the choices we made the night before in terms of how we will react the next day. Most people, when they wake up in the morning, don’t even realize they’ve made a choice.
The problem with this is that emotions are so natural and ingrained into our psyche that we often don’t even think about them. We are so used to a certain way of reacting to things that it becomes automatic. For example, when you are having a good day and you get a text message from your best friend saying something like “you have a new haircut!” you do not even think about the choice of being in a bad mood. You just scroll through the text message and start reacting.
The problem is that most of us don’t have a choice about how we react to things, and we don’t have the willpower to stop. The only way to control it is to be aware of how we feel about things, and then make a choice to act accordingly. The problem with this is that you can be so self-conscious about how you feel about something that you don’t even realize you are feeling that way.
I think the biggest difference between good moods and bad moods is that bad moods are usually more extreme. If you think youre not going to have a good day, youve probably already started to think about how much better you will be. That’s why you put on that outfit, or use this new car, or go somewhere you want to go, or feel so happy that you almost want to sing.
There is a difference between happiness and sadness. The key to controlling what you feel is to have a good mood. If you are sad, you can’t control that sadness. If you are happy, you can. If you are on the edge of a deep depression, you can feel it but it can’t be controlled. You can control your mood, but you can’t control its intensity.
You can control how much you feel, but the intensity is a different matter. If you look at people in an introspective manner, they will usually admit to feeling so much pain and so much anger that they are probably going to explode at some point. But you can only control your emotions for so long, and then it’s too late. You may feel the urge to run and you can try controlling it, but running won’t change your physical pain or the emotions associated with it.
Most of us have had the experience of being in a situation where we felt so strong about something that we would feel so intense that we ended up punching someone to see how it felt. But this is not the way it works any more. We can’t control the intensity of our emotions, and the intensity of our emotions can’t be controlled, but we can control the intensity of our behavior.
The book, “Managing Emotions: How to Stop the Rage, and Start the Peace,” is a great place to start.
You see, emotions are a complicated set of things. They are about feelings, about a person’s reactions to a situation, about how much control we have over our own reactions, and about our own control over our own reactions. To try to control an emotion would be like trying to stop the flow of water after it has already begun. To try to control our emotions is like trying to control a river with the current.
