IN CONTROL OF OURSELVES

What makes us happy, sad, angry or afraid? I often wondered at this query. Is someone's act, word or attitude a determinant of our emotions? Do these emotions just spring from within us? These aren't non-causal. That's for sure. It's also tempting to label these emotions as a 'cumulative outcome' of the dynamics of our social environment. Deep down in each one of our thoughts, there are countless moments upon which rest the reasons of our moods and emotions. These could both be physiological and psychological. Physiologically - the part of our brain that deals with emotions (the reactionary brain), based on sensory observations (the stimuli), if it's 'allowed' to short circuit the part of brain that 'thinks' we end up behaving irrationally. This happens most of the time barring some reflex actions necessary to protect own life from imminent dangers. Psychologically - we let ourselves into 'assumptions' and build our perceptions, which could possibly be untrue. A pre-conceived reaction to these perceptions then drives our emotions. In both of these cases, there are two action verbs: 'allow' the reactionary brain to short-circuit the path of reason and 'assume' things based on some available information. Who then has the control of these 'action verbs'? It's us. It's myself who is in control of 'allowing' and 'assuming'.

. Victor Frankl, a famous Holocaust survivor and a psychiatrist, in his powerful book "Man's Search for Meaning" gives a great analysis of how one's response to a given stimulus determines the course of rest of his life. Franklin Covey, in his book "7-Habits of Highly Effective People" also makes a reference to Viktor Frankl saying, "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom". So, it's not the cause but our response to the cause is the determinant of our moods and emotions.