Emotions

We live in an emotional world. Songs like "Listen To Your Heart" and "Love Song" are often seen at the top of the charts. Authors make $1.375 billion a year writing what they call "romance fiction".

There is of course, the sad stuff. Emocide books, songs by My Chemical Romance, Dr. Phil.

They say fifty percent of all marriage ends in divorce. Do you know why that is? Because people think with their hearts and not with their brains. Because they marry a drunk, or someone who beats puppies, or a drug addict because they "luuuuuuv them". Not so in love when they turn on you, huh? No one thinks any more. Disney movies, cartoons, children's stories. All of these are telling kids to listen to their heart, but what happens when their heart leads them into an abusive marriage?

Let me tell you a story.

There once was a little girl. She was happy, friendly, loving. However, her social skills were severely lacking. And that's being nice.

Of course, children don't understand to look past that and see the person inside. If you're not "one of us" you're "one of them" and you never want to be in that group. Teacher's pet, dork, loser. These became common insults. Friends stopped talking to her because they "couldn't be seen with her." People didn't like her and her friends were afraid of being labeled dorks by association.

As she grew up, the insults followed her into middle school where they got worse. The little kids had grown into nasty teenagers and their skills at name calling doubled. (Note to self: go listen to "Teenagers" by MCR) At one point, she had to run into the counselors office in the middle of an emotional breakdown because of some nasty brat who had been picking on her for the duration of her eighth grade year.

She went into high school with the attitude "I won't take crap any more". And she went in armed with the best weapons a girl could have. Sarcasm, attitude, an intense hatred for almost everyone she knew from middle school.

Okay, I'm exaggerating. Not an "intense hatred", but she certainly wasn't shy about making her opinions about them known.

She rarely had anything good to say.

It worked. People left her alone and for once in her life she enjoyed being around the people she went to school with. They still hated her, but it was a quiet hate.

And what was the lesson the little girl learned?

Never let your defenses down.

Now, in my opinion, showing any negative emotion at all (I.E. crying, yelling, etc) lets your defenses down. It shows that you can be hurt. Getting upset in front of an enemy (or anyone for that matter) is like handing them your weaknesses on a golden platter surrounded by cookies. not such a good idea. And people (by people I mean ANYONE, friends included) will always end up using your weaknesses against you. Let's face it, when the chips are down, people will eat each other. My solution? Do as the little girl in the story did. Build up walls and keep them there.

Emotions are logic murderers. When your mind is full of "love" are you thinking of his bad traits? When you're angry, do you care who you yell at? Or do you just feel like being angry at someone?

Now, there are good emotions. And without ANY emotions we'd be like animals, living purely on instinct. Love, happiness, hope and the rest of it. I'm just begging you all to S*A*T before you go on an emotional rampage.

A friend of mine recently told me "not to bottle up" my emotions. I have this to say:

That's what this blog is for.

S*A*T = Stop and think