Can We Control Our Emotions? #043

Your Daily Happiness Gym

Hello, and welcome again to EveryDawn.

Now, when we talk about controlling our virtues in order to reach eudaimonia, or flourishing, which is what Aristotle is saying we should be doing, sometimes the question is, "How can I control my feelings?" Controlling my virtues often involves controlling my feelings. So, I would say, "Okay, I have to be virtuous. I have to forgive, for example, somebody who did something bad to me, or I have to be patient with somebody who annoys me, or I have to be courageous in a situation where I'm afraid."

All of these involve overcoming my emotions. I am afraid, I am anxious, I am annoyed, I am angry, and I am powerless to overcome my emotions. So, what Aristotle says doesn't apply to me, because I cannot change my emotions.

One of the central questions when we talk about getting a better life by following Aristotle's ideas is, "Can I even change my emotions, or can I act against my emotions?"

There is an interesting paper by Matthew Liao, who is a philosopher. In this paper, he argues that yes, we can influence our emotions, and this is kind of a superpower if you think about it. Changing my emotions is a superpower, because very often, we are taught to think that our emotions are unchangeable; they just happen to us. Even the word happiness contains this idea that happiness is something that happens. I don't have control over it. So, if happiness just happens, and I don't have control over it, and so with other emotions—my anxiety just happens, my fear just happens—then it turns out that I have very little control over my life. I am just a ball pushed here and there by my emotions as they happen to happen to me, and I actually don't control my life.

Aristotle would completely disagree with this. This is a modern view. We have this view because it tends to excuse us; it tends to be a good excuse for all our failings, and this is what makes it so popular. If you know I cannot combat my anxiety, I cannot combat my depression, I can do nothing against my fears, then I'm justified in having these things, and then whatever bad thing I do, I can push the responsibility to my emotions, which I cannot change. I'm not saying that there are not people who justifiably have mental health problems that need treatment, and who are really unable to act against their emotions, but for many of us, this will be an excuse, this will be just something we say, "I couldn't act differently because I had this emotion." But this is actually not true, because many of us, or most of us, still have quite a bit of control over our emotions; we are just not used anymore to exercise this control.

Matthew Liao's paper, which I will give you the title here and in the description, reminds us that we actually have a lot of control over our emotions. Perhaps an easy example to see this is falling in love. So often, falling in love, like even the expression says, falling, means it's something that happens to me; I just fall, I just have no control over it, it's gravity. But falling in love is, for most of us, a very controlled emotional reaction, because there are many situations in which we are not supposed to fall in love, although perhaps all the conditions are fulfilled, let's say between a student and a teacher, or between close-together working colleagues in an office. And although there might be an attraction there, a natural attraction, we know that we are not supposed to fall in love, and so we can resist that; we don't fall in love. And there are only very few people who are so driven by their emotions that they cannot resist, and then it comes to unfortunate and often illegal situations in which such relationships happen that should not have happened. But for most of us, it's possible to control this; we tell ourselves, "No, this is not the thing I'm supposed to be doing," or if I'm married, and I see a very attractive person on the street, I don't just run after them. I say, "Okay, this is a very attractive person. I recognize that, but it's not for me because I'm married." I'm able to do that, and I'm able to consciously be indifferent to that person. So, you see, we have this ability to control our emotions to some extent.

What Matthew Liao says is that we can try to even think about different tricks we can use to control our emotions. One of these tricks is to create reasons and to visualize these reasons. He says, "I can, when I see, let's say, an attractive person on the street, remind myself that I am married, and I can remind myself that I have a happy marriage, that I love my partner, that we are living together for so long, that there is no reason I have to change, and that this other person might be a monster, after all. I don't know anything about them except I saw them on the street, so this might be a horrible person that would annoy me terribly if I were together with her."

And so, this is why I can create these reasons; I can visualize them; I can visualize a good life with my partner now, and I can visualize a horrible life with this new person, and this will help me make the right decision. This is in my control. In this way, I can control my emotions. Similarly, I can reflect on reasons; I can try to make a list of reasons why I should not fall in love with this person. I can make a list of reasons why this should be the case, or not be the case. So, this is AOL; this is forbidden; this is bad; this will lead to all sorts of problems, and so on. And by reflecting on these reasons for a while consciously, I can again make it easier for me to act in the right way.

Finally, I can cultivate particular emotions, sometimes with the help of external supports. So, for example, let's say I want to calm down and to be more kind and to be more charitable. So, I could say, "Perhaps let me go to a church, even if I'm not particularly religious. Just being in this environment of a quiet church and sitting there and meditating, reflecting on my life, or on my feelings within the church, will change the atmosphere for me and will make it easier for me to make the right decision, or to get into a state where I am more kind and more charitable than I would be, perhaps, if I was, let's say, in a boxing ring." Cultivating emotions can also help, and I can use these external supports—these places, a church, a cemetery, whatever place that gives me a particular feeling, a beach, a sunset, a forest—and I can use these to support my emotions that I want to cultivate.

So, when we go to our lives today, let us think of our emotions in this way. Let us observe them, and then let us think of them in this way as something that I am in control of, mostly. Of course, everybody has some emotions we are not in control of. So, for example, I am afraid of spiders. If a huge spider comes crawling towards me, I'm not going to be able at this moment to control my emotions; I will run away screaming. But again, even this can be controlled. We know that there is behavior and therapy with spiders, right? I could go to a psychologist and learn to touch spiders and to play with them and so on, and after a while, I would be okay. This is known; this exists. You can go have therapy like this and deal with a problem. It's just not worth it for me because where I live, there are no big spiders, so it very rarely happens that I encounter one that I need to react to it in this way. But even this is a controllable emotion. But our emotions in normal life are much less strong and much easier controllable. And so, let us observe for a week, perhaps, or for a few days, how we emotionally react and how much control we actually would have, and perhaps exercise this when we feel rationally that we should. So, instead of just falling for an emotion, or being the victim of an emotion, let us try to see if we can actually control it. And this can be very small situations, you know, in your marriage, perhaps your husband or wife does something that annoys you, something recurring, like dropping toothpaste somewhere, or putting the toothbrush the wrong way into the cup, or whatever it is. Life is full of such things, and instead of reacting annoyed, let's realize that we have control over this emotion, that I can perhaps think in terms of charity, in terms of love, in terms of the good moments I have with my husband or wife, and this will give me the strength to control this emotion, and perhaps to say, "Look, this is a thing he did, or she did, which is something that used to annoy me, but because I love this person, I'm willing to accept this. I'm okay with that. I'm not going to react in a negative way to it," and therefore, we can now both flourish, and we can both have a happier life together. So again, it's not about just making myself into a victim; it's about realizing that together, we can flourish better. So, if I give up my bad emotional reaction, I'm going to create a situation in which both of us are going to have a better life.

And that's it for today. Thank you, and see you next time. Bye-bye.