It’s probably not that I’m surprised by myself - because being me is my normal - but rather other people acting differently that surprises me, as it highlights the difference between us. The first thing that comes to mind is my seeming incapability to get angry at things or people. I just don’t tend to feel much extreme emotion, and it’s so odd seeing other people lashing out. Online it’s different, as I just assume that those people are kids with undeveloped brains who write those angry comments on political threads especially, but I often see adults acting that way in real life too, and it just boggles my mind how someone can get to that age and still completely lack the ability to control their emotions.
It doesn’t sound like you are controlling your emotions. You said you don’t tend to feel extreme emotions. Is it surprising to you that others feel big emotions, or do you feel big ones yourself you just ate able to control or repress them?
If we focus on negative emotions, the ones like irritation or anxiety are more sneaky. I don’t tend to notice them the moment they arise, and when I finally do, they’ve already poisoned my mind and it’s much harder to get rid of them. Anger, on the other hand, is such an immediate and strong emotion that there’s nothing sneaky about it. It won’t go undetected but rather acts as this kind of mindfulness alarm. The moment anger arises, my mind shines this spotlight on it and it loses meaning and kind of just vanishes. If I, say, make a big mistake or break something, the anger does arise, but I immediately realize that it already happened and getting angry over it is just additional negativity on top of an already bad situation, and I then just let go of it. It’s not that I repress it but rather I simply just don’t feed it. You can’t really stay angry for much longer than seconds unless you start telling yourself a story to maintain that anger. It’s mostly optional.
It’s probably not that I’m surprised by myself - because being me is my normal - but rather other people acting differently that surprises me, as it highlights the difference between us. The first thing that comes to mind is my seeming incapability to get angry at things or people. I just don’t tend to feel much extreme emotion, and it’s so odd seeing other people lashing out. Online it’s different, as I just assume that those people are kids with undeveloped brains who write those angry comments on political threads especially, but I often see adults acting that way in real life too, and it just boggles my mind how someone can get to that age and still completely lack the ability to control their emotions.
It doesn’t sound like you are controlling your emotions. You said you don’t tend to feel extreme emotions. Is it surprising to you that others feel big emotions, or do you feel big ones yourself you just ate able to control or repress them?
If we focus on negative emotions, the ones like irritation or anxiety are more sneaky. I don’t tend to notice them the moment they arise, and when I finally do, they’ve already poisoned my mind and it’s much harder to get rid of them. Anger, on the other hand, is such an immediate and strong emotion that there’s nothing sneaky about it. It won’t go undetected but rather acts as this kind of mindfulness alarm. The moment anger arises, my mind shines this spotlight on it and it loses meaning and kind of just vanishes. If I, say, make a big mistake or break something, the anger does arise, but I immediately realize that it already happened and getting angry over it is just additional negativity on top of an already bad situation, and I then just let go of it. It’s not that I repress it but rather I simply just don’t feed it. You can’t really stay angry for much longer than seconds unless you start telling yourself a story to maintain that anger. It’s mostly optional.
I’m like you, it’s like I just don’t care.