Why Do You React to Possibility?
You know that feeling don’t you? You read something, or heard something, and suddenly you’re getting angry, or scared, or happy, or frustrated or whatever. You have no way of knowing whether it’s true or not, and at that point you don’t even care.
Whatever you just heard, or read, or saw was just enough to make you emotionally seize it with a deep and passionate psychological embrace, and now you’re off, believing whatever you want to believe.
Because it gets you the emotions that you want.
I’ve done it. I heard something recently about someone with whom I have a pretty nasty history, and a significantly unsettled emotional balance. What I heard was right in line with my beliefs about that person, and immediately, before I could even catch myself, I was off running.
Thinking about how this person is someone who has so many character flaws, and is obviously not as kind, or patience, or ‘as enlightened’ as me (yeah, you know you’ve thought that one).
I was judging this person, because that judgment made me feel better about myself.
Sitting here this morning, a couple of weeks after I heard and reacted to that piece of information, I saw other people exhibiting that same emotional runaway about a piece of information that was posted in a Facebook group.
They have no way of knowing whether the information posted was true, but they were reacting to it with all the self righteous judgment and superiority they could muster.
Because it fit their narrative, and made them feel the emotions that we all like to feel.
I wrote a while ago about how anger is heroin for the selfish soul, because it enables us to meet so many of our human needs. From significance, to connection, to certainty (and even sometimes for variety), the further we are from being truly balanced and mature in our emotions, the more we will crave these feelings.
From an angry teenager who is acting out, to a bitter elderly person who cannot get their own way, there are so many people who will believe anything that they read, because they are craving an emotional hit to make them feel better about themselves than they do right now.
And it’s destroying our families, our communities, our country and our world.
Which is why I preach self awareness, and kindness. Self awareness is the only true antidote that I know for the problems that beset us as individuals, and as a species.
Imagine if one day everybody awoke with an internal sense of peace, of balance, or gratitude and of kindness. Imagine what a world we could create then, if we were flooded with joy rather than jealousy, balance rather than bullying, compassion rather than cruelty, and hope rather than hate.
But we have to start with ourselves.
So today, I invite you to try to understand why you want to react to something, especially if it is only a rumor. Even if you are sure that it’s true, with every fiber of your being, you could be completely wrong, but following the emotions that drive your desires, and sometimes your demons.
Whether or not it’s true is secondary in importance to why you want to feel that way about it.
When you learn why you want to feel that way, you’ll have learned something of incredible value to yourself, and the world.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings