Feed or starve, the choice is yours

Plutchik-Wheel of emotions

Emotions:

- A strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others. (Oxford Dictionary)

- The affective aspect of consciousness / a state of feeling / a conscious mental reaction (as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

- A discrete and consistent responses to internal or external events which have a particular significance for the organism. (Wikipedia)

- A natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others. (Google Dictionary)

Can we control them? Some people think we actors have on-off switches to turn on whatever emotions we want. It's not really that simple. Lots of preparation goes before we can achieve those emotions on stage.

I don't think that I can control my emotions. However, I've realized a neat little trick. An emotion is very much like a living thing. It can grow bigger and stronger or it can get weaker and even die. So, just like a living thing, you can either feed it and make it grow or starve it and let it die. We can definitely control our actions of feeding or starving it.

Eg. I have a crush on a colleague. Butterflies in stomach, hearts-a-fluttering crush. Then I feed the crush... stalk his Facebook page (this part is fictitious... we didn't have Facebook yet at that time, otherwise I would've FB-stalked him :P). It grows. 

Feed it some more... we go on a date. It grows even more.

He proposes. It grows even bigger. 

We do up our house together. Growing, growing...

We plan the wedding together. Big big growth.

We discover a new passion together. Perform in theatre together. It grows even bigger. and bigger and bigger and bigger. We write a musical together...and we keep feeding and it keeps growing and growing and growing. Wheeeeee!!! But in this case, it is 2 people feeding it.

or

Eg. I have a crush on a colleague. Butterflies in stomach, hearts-a-fluttering crush. Then I feed the crush... stalk his Facebook page. It grows. I go back to life as normal. I rationalize since he was in Penang, I was in KL... it's geographically impractical right? Starved it. It weakens. Stop contacting him, only see him infrequently during meetings. Starve it. It weakens even more. I resigned from the organization and no longer see him even infrequently. It dies off. Habis cerita. Choose this option if your colleague is unavailable of course. hehehe. 

You can also feed a negative emotion and make yourself totally unhappy or starve it and snap out of it in due time. 

Eg. I am annoyed with my boss because he was rude due to a bad day. I feed it and complain to my colleague about him. It grows. Another colleague gossips about him about his work ethics, I add to her gossip by telling her about him being rude. More feeding. It grows. I feel to lazy to go to work and press snooze on my alarm 10x causing me to be late to work. I curse the traffic jam. Feeding, growing . I could not finish my work because I was late and had to stayback late and cancel my drinking night out with the girls. I curse the workload. Feeding, growing. In my bad mood, I was rude to a customer. The customer throws tantrum at me. It grows. I post a frustrated FB status and 100 friends "Like" it. It grew soooo big that I so hate this job, I shall resign ASAP!! Even my friends agree, right?? 

Do I end up happy even after many others justified my annoyance?? And yet, I've been guilty of feeding negative emotions before, many times.

or

I am annoyed with my boss because he was rude due to a bad day. I starve it and just do what he asked and quickly email to him so that he won't bother me. It weakens. Another colleague gossips about him and his work ethics, I just avoid her and go for lunch with other colleagues. It weakens more. The next day, ask boss out for lunch, chit-chat and found out his maid ran away yesterday and stole his family's stuff. Oh, no wonder bad mood. It dies off. No longer annoyed at boss or at job. Ta-da!

So, I promise myself if I have positive emotions... I shall consciously feed it, regularly. Just like feeding my cats, twice a day. heheh. And if I have negative emotions, I shall consciously remind myself to starve it, starve it till it dies. For me, I have a tendency to feed ALL emotions good or bad. @.@

So, I do have an on-off switch after all... no wonder I'm an actress. ;) ;)