An Ugly Truth
Our feelings can’t be trusted because they lie to us. All. The. Time.
I was conversing through Medium comments the other day with someone who didn’t understand why people would use restrictive, unsustainable diets that don’t work rather than methods we know that DO work. I told them it’s because the more restrictive a diet is, the more they feel like they are doing something about their weight problem, and feeling like they are doing something is actually more important than actually doing something.
This is just one case of feelings lying to us.
Many people seem to think that their feelings are some sort of absolute truth detector. You can show people a mountain of data on any particular subject, but they’ll dismiss it because they feel that it isn’t correct. Their feelings tell them what’s right and true. No. They don’t.
Feelings are a chemical state in your brain. That’s why antidepressants work. (If they don’t work for you, then the antidepressant is addressing the wrong chemical imbalance.) They aren’t some mystical truth sensor.
I was on a hiring committee with 2 other women. We had a male applicant that was ultra polite and respectful. That made the other 2 women feel funny and they vetoed hiring him because of their feelings. (How bad do your relationships have to be to be made uncomfortable by respectful behavior?)
My sister and I were going to a science fiction convention and were lost. She approached an elderly woman to ask directions. The woman felt threatened by her because she was wearing a black velvet cape. There was no threat, her emotions were lying to her.
Look on Quora and there is no shortage of people who feel betrayed by a loved one because they dreamt that the loved one did something wrong. Many ask how to punish the person. There was no betrayal. Their feelings were lying to them.
People who suffer from PMS, menopausal mood swings , PTSD, depression or anxiety are actively attacked by their feelings. When someone is melting down, there is rarely an active threat, they just feel that there is. (No, people are not driving slow in front of me on purpose just to piss me off and make me late.)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating becoming emotionless automatons. Feelings are what motivates and rewards us. They give us great joy and are often the reason for living. What I AM saying is that we need to be critical of what our emotions tell us.
Think about the last things you said or did in anger. Were you later proud of those things? Not a single decision I’ve made based entirely on emotions was a good one. Not one.
Businesses use emotions to get us to do stupid things. Credit card bill collectors will emotionally abuse the people they are collecting from in order to get them to make stupid decisions, such as mortgaging their house to pay off the credit card. Self destructive habits, such as smoking and binge drinking, are promoted using emotions and are used to handle emotions that are getting out of control.
That doesn’t mean that emotions shouldn’t be considered when making decisions. Being in love with my husband was one of the reasons I decided to marry him. However, that wasn’t the only reason. There was also compatibility and how we had opposite strengths and weaknesses. There are lots of people who marry for love and then find that they can’t live with the person, or that the person they love has weaknesses (such as the inability to handle money) that will destroy the relationship long term, or the person they were in love with was an image they put forth rather than the real person.
Treat your emotions like they were your children. Take care of them, value them, but don’t automatically believe everything they tell you, because emotions lie. All. The. Time.
