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From: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: A compromise on emotional self-determinism
Message-ID: <1692@hao.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 12:36:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: hao.1692
Posted: Mon Aug 12 12:36:04 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Aug-85 01:40:46 EDT
References: <393@boulder.UUCP>
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 46

> If a situation I really do not want to see comes about, I am simply going to
> be unhappy about it for a while.  Likewise, fortunate events tend to cause
> elevated emotional states.

  While this seems to be true in practice, it does not HAVE to work that way.
The "unhappiness" over an "unfortunate" event is caused by making a comparison
between the actual state of the world, and how you "wish" it was. This does
not mean that it is abnormal or "bad" to make such comparisons; results show
that people often do so. But I still claim that whether or not you make this
comparison CAN be controlled. Not that it *always* will be, could be or should
be, nor that *I* always do either, just that in a given situation, it CAN be.

> 	I guess my feeling is that somebody who is sad for an evening over
> a rejection, or who cries for a month because the SO of their dreams has
> just told them to take a leap, is NOT entirely in control of said feelings,
> and most certainly should not be told that they are responsible for being
> sad and would be happy if they chose to.  It just does not work that way.

  I still say they can simply not make this comparison between the way the
world actually is (they got rejected) and the way they *wish* it were (they
didn't get rejected). In practice, I tend to make such comparisons also,
but recognizing that it is my choice to do so usually helps me come out of it
much faster and with much less suffering than in the past, before I was aware
of these comparisons I was making. A very sad lesson that I HAVE learned is
that you are quite right when you say the people should not be told that they
are responsible for being sad, even if I believe that that is true. In practice
it doesn't get the result you want (making your friend feel better). Note that
this has nothing to do with whether or not they really are responsible; just
a statement that in practice, confronting them with their responsibility for
their emotional state, while they are still feeling bad, does not help to
bring them out of it. Even with fellow awareness training graduates, it seems
to work better to wait until THEY recognize what they are doing rather than
confronting them with it.

> 	Where choice comes in is when it comes down to recovering from
> said unfortunate event/situation.  I do believe that one has the capability
> to prevent a traumatic occurence from ruining one's life.

   Certainly they do. A certain amount of feeling bad after an event that is
judged "unfortunate" seems normal. Awareness of the comparison they are
making which is causing the bad feelings can eliminate much of the suffering,
but once the judgment that this event is "bad" has been made, a certain
amount of emotional pain is inevitable. How fast you recover is, however,
totally up to you.

--Greg