Probably a third of all miseries that trouble humankind are emotional. Psychiatrists mostly discover that their patients are emotionally troubled and mentally feeble. Troubled people have their minds weakened or overwhelmed by strong emotions.
For instance, a paranoid may imagine that people don’t like him. A diagnosis may show that the problem could be a very low self-esteem. “I don’t think I’m a person worthy of anything,” he may insist. Further diagnosis may show that the patient was abused or maltreated as a child. The trauma had impressed a negative emotion that stayed in him, grew, and finally took over his mindset and perceptions.
Let’s take a simpler and more common example. A spirited talk about their child’s birthday party somehow ended up on a sour note. Mary couldn’t figure out why John suddenly became argumentative about what cake to buy. Later on, John admitted that cakes weren’t really that important to him. He told her that any cake would do as long as their child liked it. It’s just that he’s bothered by how his boss has been treating him in the office. His boss has been criticizing everything he decides on. John couldn’t take being opposed anymore, even with a simple decision on what cake to buy.
Everyday, many people are held prisoners by their emotions. They let emotions rule their lives and decide how everything would turn out. They behave as if they have no choice but to yield to their emotions. They let emotions use them.
If you choose to, you can use emotions to your advantage. Instead of letting them take over your life and ruin it too, you can use your emotions to build you up.
The truth is that emotions have no power to control anything or anyone. The only reason they seem to be so overwhelming is that they are usually given power to be so. Emotions are similar to power beggars. They wait to be given power. By themselves, they can do nothing. Once they are given importance, they grab that opportunity and take over. Remember, emotions can grow in power overnight.
The good news is that you can order your emotions to propriety. With the right training, you can enforce a process that submits the emotions to a practical will. A practical will is that which is commanded by a strong and practical mind. If a personality has this operation, it will be a progressively changing personality everyday. When a practical mind decides on what behavior to manifest and how to manifest it, a healthy personality is the result. A healthy personality is one that makes use of its emotions, rather than letting emotions use it.