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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!geoff
From: geoff@burl.UUCP (geoff)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Emotions and choice
Message-ID: <787@burl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Jul-85 18:33:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: burl.787
Posted: Mon Jul 29 18:33:41 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 02:08:15 EDT
References: <5557@cbscc.UUCP> <ihlpg.816> <591@unc.UUCP>
Reply-To: geoff@burl.UUCP (geoff)
Organization: AT&T Technologies, Burlington NC
Lines: 60
Summary: 

In article <370@ihlpm.UUCP> jgl@ihlpm.UUCP (j. laslow) writes:
>
>>From ihnp4!ucbvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-curium!jackson Wed Jul 24 09:10:15 1985
>>From: jackson@curium.DEC (Seth Jackson)
>>Newsgroups: net.singles
>>Subject: Dealing with rejection
>>>	No one can make you feel (emotional) pain (or any other type of
>>>feeling for that matter).  Only YOU can make this happen.
>
>I agree.
>
>According to Dr. Wayne Dyer, author of "Your Erroneous Zones", one of the
>major steps to happiness is that since YOU control your thoughts, and that
>your feelings come from your thoughts, YOU control your feelings.
>
>If external circumstances dictate the type of mood you are in, then if a
>circumstance comes along that "makes you feel bad", you are stuck in a bad
>emotional state until another event comes along to make you feel good
>again.
>
>                          JGL
>                       !ihnp4!ihplm!jgl


An alternative view comes from Harry Browne (_How_I_Found_Freedom_in_an_Unfree_
World_ -- an Excellent book, by the way).  Paraphrazing him loosely, he divides
behaviors into twenty or so 'traps'.  Two of these are the 'Intellectual Trap'
and the 'Emotional Trap'.  The intellectual trap is believing you can control
your feelings (in the sense that you can MAKE yourself feel what you want to
feel).  The emotional trap is believing that you can make intelligent
decisions when in the grip of strong emotions (you win a small bet at the
track.  In the glow of winning, you feel lucky, so you bet the rent).

His point (with the intellectual trap) is that while you cannot control your
emotions directly, you can control the surroundings which cause those emotions.

If you are bummed out, sitting around being bummed out is not going to do
much of anything except keep you bummed out (until you get bored of it...).
Whereas if you go play tennis, go to a play (or whatever turns you on) you
focus on situations which you know bring you pleasure, rather than those
which are bringing you pain.  You can't just say 'I will be happy' and start
being happy, but you can do things which you know (from experience) make
you happy.  A lot of people do things which they THINK will make them happy
and keep on doing it because they are convinced it SHOULD make them happy
(even though they are not happy while they are doing it...).

In the emotional trap you lose sight of what specific actions to take to
further your overall happiness, in the intellectual trap you lose sight
of what really makes you happy.

I see the situations as a series of balances.  The other person is going to
be hurt by your telling them something.  You have to be willing to cause
the pain, because the alternative (them hanging on, whatever) is certainly
worse for you, and probably for them as well (in the longer run).  On the
other hand, anyone who causes gratuitous pain is somewhere (on my scale)
between a maggot and slime (leaning towards slime).
	geoff sherwood

(apologies to harry browne, wherever he may be, for mangling part
of his book).