The Emotional Roller Coaster

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, emotion is defined as:

emotion: (n.) A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling: the emotions of joy, sorrow, reverence, hate, and love.

What does that mean? Emotions are one of the hardest aspects of human nature to define. It’s often difficult to even describe what a feeling feels like. Try describing happiness to someone who’s never experienced it. How would you define anger or explain it to a small child who is just learning the word?

This series is my attempt to further understand human emotions. I’m not promising a complete explanation (because that would be next to impossible)… just a little more understanding.

Introduction
I decide to start a series of posts on emotion and offer up a little basic emotional theory to get the ball rolling…

The Nature of Emotion
Emotions are neither “good” nor “bad”… it’s what we do with them that determines the implications of experiencing them…

The Pursuit of Happiness
What is happiness? How do we “get happy”? Why is happiness important? Throw in a little Freud and the whole thing starts to make sense…

I Love You Today. I Hate You Tomorrow
An examination of two equal, but opposite, emotional conditions: love and hate. They’re more similar than you might think…

The Emotional Pressure Cooker
Anger can be a very dangerous emotion if not dealt with properly. Here are a few things to remember when you feel your lid might pop…

Should You Be Ashamed of Yourself?
Embarrassment can often be avoided by reminding ourselves of a few simple truths about our behavior…

Why Don’t Boys Cry?
An assessment of social stigmas on men and crying… and the developmental damage it could be doing…

What emotions do you experience most often? What would you like the next post in the series to include? Submit your ideas today!

Return to the Series home page for more related posts.