Our emotions are what make us humans and separate us from other living things. I am not saying animals do not have them, but the range and complexity of human emotions is incomparable to that of other creatures of this world. What would happen if one suddenly looses their emotions, and starts feeling neither pain nor gain. Would life certainly be dull? Or not? In fact we also need emotions to feel that life is getting dull. I guess we stop being humans altogether, as without our emotions, we are no different than the walls we sit in everyday. So emotions are our blessings, our gift that enable us feel and distinguish the bad from the good, and let us appreciate the beauty of being alive.
There are people who hide their emotions, those who are open emotion books, and those who are good emotions regulators expressing their emotions only at the appropriate place and time. Most of us probably fall in the third category. I personally prefer people who are open emotion books than those who bottle up their emotions and plaster a poker face to hide the contents of their bottle. You know what to expect with people who easily show their angers, their joys and their indifferences. And it becomes easy for you sort out the strategies to handle these kinds of people and live peacefully with them. With poker faces, you are in the constant cycle of guessing, misinterpretation and disappointment. And besides, it is also unhealthy to bottle up your emotions. In fact, the harder you work to bottle up your emotions, the less peace of mind you get because those emotions start to eat you up and cause further inner pain. So, it’s probably best to let them out, at least once in a while.
The tricky thing with emotions is in regulating them. If unregulated, the damage can be serious and lasting. I am talking here about our bad emotions, of course. Who would want to bottle up their happy emotions, after all? Emotions are like cooking oil boiling in a pot put on fire with the lid shut, in constant fight to throw out the lid in search of freedom. With extended stay on fire, the lid will eventually explode to let the boiling oil out of the pot and create further fire on the stove. I see three options to avoid hot oil from spilling out on the stove and creating further damage. The first option is to avoid the fire altogether. The second option is to keep the lid well shut to prevent the boiling oil from coming out of the pot. And the third option is to regulate the strength of the fire. Which one will you choose? Obviously, the third option is the best. The thing with the first two options is that they do not require your time investment needed to keep an eye on the pot, be always conscious about the status of the pot, and to exert some effort in keeping things in order. With the third option, one needs to be constantly mindful of the degree at which the oil is boiling, the strength of the fire, and of the effort needed to keep things in order.
In this time of election, let us remember to choose the third option discussed above. Let us be mindful of our emotions, which if let to complete freedom, can make us all pay the price that we cannot afford. These are times where we should be mindful of our emotions, our actions and their consequences. By keeping an eye on the pot of boiling emotions, we can make this time a historic time for our nation!
