Thoughts on Emotion

I was thinking about how to think about emotion and came up with a useful metaphor. Emotion is like the color of one's life, but one chooses what picture to draw. Imagine an artist with an assortment of colors to work with but he draws the picture. One artist may have more blue, another more red, and yes, this does dictate (to some extent) the character of the drawing, but it does not at all dictate the content.

The point is that we are not in absolute control over our emotions, but we can control what construct the emotion operates within or what framework the emotion energizes.

It's really about correct thinking so that the emotion is made useful. For example, a family man will utilize anxiety worrying about the future well-being of his family. The same anxiety could be misused by a narcissist worrying about how one's haircut is perceived.

Of course, I did not come up with this metaphor. It’s sort of tacitly suggested in the colored imagery we routinely apply to color. If you have the blues you are sad, one may be red with anger, the green monster is jealousy. Emotions don’t always make sense but they can always be harnessed for good if we make the effort. And there is no need to say that they can be an excuse for bad behavior and worse. This is the choice we all make.