Emotions Are Universal

When we divide love, how are we supposed to use it to come together?

In studying emotions, we found something important: people are quicker to make their feelings specific than to admit a harder truth — that while our experiences are distinct, the emotions themselves aren’t. We all share the same signs and symptoms. That’s how we can not only label an emotion, but diagnose it.

Happiness is enjoying a moment that brings us joy. It’s looking around and appreciating everything you see — a state of being that keeps us optimistic about life.

Anger is when someone or something causes us to lose self-control, so we either lash out or walk out. Fight or flight. Funny how much that mirrors fear — the same emotion that makes us lose control also makes us defend or run for comfort.

Misery is the negative state that stops us from enjoying life. It makes us pessimistic about everything living has to offer.

We label these emotions to understand the what, when, where, how — and most importantly, the why of what we’re going through. We couldn’t understand the functions of a person without categorizing them. Yet here we are, fighting labels instead of deciding which labels we actually want to embrace.

When we know each emotion, and we know what causes it, we’re far more able to walk toward the feelings we want and away from the ones we don’t.

So remind yourself of this: we are made of the definitions that define us. And if we don’t like the meaning of something that describes us, we shouldn’t change the meaning — we should change the descriptive.

Once that clicks, love becomes the definition that describes us — and we finally reach our destination of being bonded together.

The LoveSnobs