Perhaps this is a problem that many of us deal with, or perhaps it’s just one of my faults, but my emotional assessment of some important aspect of my life can go from good to terrible in a surprisingly short amount of time. Too short. Some facet of my life can suffer a temporary setback (temporary in hindsight) and my emotions tend to blow that problem out of proportion and take on the feeling that the setback is permanent and all is lost. I try to use my logical side to keep me on the rails until the setback eases. The logical me is very handy, and I encourage the use of it as much as possible but the emotional me is perhaps the truer me. It is the me that I care about the most. The emotional side should not always be listened to. Sometimes it is better to put it in a little timeout, but not for too long though.
I don’t know exactly how to keep temporary problems from ballooning to a feeling of something in life being permanently broken, other than to try to know yourself, and try to use your logic as an autopilot to keep you doing positive things, until the emotional side can deal with it and get back on board.
Slightly unrelated is a nice quote that I just heard at a funeral. “People who happen to get along well in life are the people who get along well with what happens in life.”
On a somewhat line of thinking, over the years I’ve recognized that, while my son seems to transition well to new things (and I guess I’m mostly talking about a new school year), he reacts to change by complaining and hating the new thing (teacher, rule, homework expectation) for what feels like forever but is probably only a few months.
I’ve had to learn to stop trying to talk him into being ok with it (my “annoying positivity”, as he calls it) and just waiting it out until suddenly that teacher he complained about every waking hour is his new favorite teacher.
Huh…so when I started typing that I was thinking he’s like you, but really I guess it’s me who’s like what you’re talking about. I have to just recognize that this is how he deals with problems, remember it’s not a permanent situation, and wait until he’s through it.
And now my comment is as long as your post. Eye roll. Sorry!
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Thanks for this David, it’s a good way of looking at how to approach life. Emotional Me & Logical Me can exist side-by-side with one being more dominant as needed/wanted. I think I need to encourage Logical Me to be a bit more positive though. -Alane
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