feelings // emotions

e⋅mo⋅tion
–noun
1.an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness.

One morning in church, the pastor's sermon was about feelings and emotions. And in that, he said that we are supposed to have emotions, that they are a good thing to express, but we should not let our emotions control us. For example if you're upset about getting a C on a test, it is wrong to take it out on your little brother, because he was not the one to give you the C on your test. However, there is a fine line about not expressing emotions, and repressing them, or just shoving it down, is also wrong. He did mention that it is from one extreme to another. But I don't understand where the medium is. Are we supposed to smile at others, even though we're furious on the inside? No, that would be fake, I don't think that's right. I simply don't understand how exactly one can express their emotions by still staying in control of them. When I think control, I think not needing to express any emotion, wouldn't that make sense? If you were in control of your emotions you wouldn't feel the need to express them. But no, according to my pastor, that is not correct.

I think it would just be easier if there wasn't such a thing as emotion or feelings. So many complications would be eliminated if we didn't have to worry about how something would make one feel. So many times in my life do I quote the Ramones and think "I want to be a teenage lobotomy..."
The book The Giver kind of experiments with the idea of minimizing emotion, which today, most would consider inhumane. But is it really such a bad idea? Imagine not being able to experience hurt, or sadness, or anger- how would the world look today? Would there still be crime? Would we still need rules?

But in a way, that idea is going back to what my pastor was saying, how we need to be in control of our emotions. Is it possible to still be angry, but not to react in anger? I can't fathom it. I love the idea of it though, of being able to be so in control of my emotions that I can reduce the number of mistakes that I make, that I can be able to acknowledge the fact that I am sad, but still think rationally. I have no idea what that would look like though, so how do I attain in doing such?

I tend to repress my emotions, I do have a few people that I can talk to about something that's on my mind, but I don't make my problems public news. I would absolutely loathe that kind of attention, I look at it as my business, and only mine. I am very selective of who I can really talk to, but I don't think I'm an emotionless zombie around everyone else. I love to smile and laugh, and I can sympathize at most times, so I feel I am a relatively bearable person to be around. Yet, I could be completely off my rocker, who knows.

Maybe I'll have an epiphany, and suddenly everything will become clear. Or perhaps its only obtained from steady practice. Either way, my ability to understand the concept of being in control of my emotions is currently just a thought and not an action.