Emotions drive our lives. They are powerful forces that can impel us towards good activity. Unfortunately, they can also impel us toward destructive activity. Some of our best decisions and some of our worst decisions came out of strong emotions. Does it have to be this way?
Throughout the ages, philosophers, psychologists, and religious leaders have contemplated the problem of emotions. Here is a summation of their key finding: calibrate your emotions to reality. As Thomas Aquinas says when it comes to courage, “Hence it belongs to fortitude that man should moderate his fear according to reason, namely that he should fear what he ought, and when he ought, and so forth” (Q. 126, A. 2, 1718).
Our emotions may reflect reality, but they also may not. We do not need to take them at face value. Concretely:
- If we are scared, it does not mean there is a real threat.
- If we are sad, it does not mean that we have lost something.
- If we are angry, it does not mean that there is an injustice.
- If we are joyful, it does not mean that things are going well.
The reverse is also true.
- If we are not scared, it does not mean there is no threat.
- If we are not sad, it does not mean that we have not lost something.
- If we are not angry, it does not mean that there is no injustice.
- If we are not joyful, it does not mean that things are not going well.
Emotions may reflect reality, but often they do not. This may seem obvious, but how often do we really examine our emotions? It seems to me that many people simply take for granted that their emotions reflect reality. The common bias is that emotions are an accurate gauge of reality.
But what if we started taking for granted that our emotions do not necessarily reflect reality? In other words, what if we did not take them at face value?
I find that I can often get angry or upset when things do not work out in the time frame that I want them to. For example, a year ago, my youngest daughter has had trouble getting ready for school over the past few days. I have noticed myself getting upset at this. However, I start to ask, is my anger calibrated to reality? Is there really an injustice here? No. There is not. My 7 year old daughter simply needs some help getting things ready the night before and getting up in time to be ready. I had to ask, does my anger reflect reality? In this case, I said, “no.” So, that helped me not be angry.
Emotions are rarely that easy to change. They get deeply rooted in our hearts and minds. It takes time and practice to change emotions. Here are a couple of examples. Differences of opinion can often feel scary. They don’t need to be. However, it will take a lot of time and thought to view differences of opinion with less fear.
For me, I tend to feel like things are going well. I need to notice that disposition within myself. My first reaction is to discount threats. I need to make sure that this does not lead me to ignore real problems. This takes a lot of practice and thinking. I have a lot of hidden emotional biases like this that are not easy to see. It takes conversation, consideration, and practice to re-calibrate them.
So, why worry about all this? We want to put our energies into productive service. Emotion is what drives us forward in productive service. If we are running from what isn’t a threat, then we will waste energy that could be put into dealing with real problems. As Aristotle says, “The man who fears what, nor when, nor as he ought is foolhardy; the man who fears what he ought not, and on the wrong occasions, and in the wrong manner is cowardly” (2.3). True excellence consists in living in accord with reality. Courage, for example, means fearing the right things in the right way at the right time and to the right degree.
To live in accordance with reality is the way of good and wise living. In order to do this, we cannot simply take our emotions at face value. We must calibrate them to reality.