“Oh, dear! Her mood swings are getting wilder. She’s becoming a slave to her emotions, just like all women!” – Futurama
What kind of mood does this make you think of? If you said “salty” – you win!
Mood is mostly a choice. When I said that to The Mrs., she said, “You know NOTHING about women. Men can compartmentalize. With women, everything is all connected.”
This video makes her point, and it’s long-ish, but fun:
But I’ll stick by my original assertion – mood is mostly a choice. You get to choose how you feel (again, mostly – some significant outside events can drive your mood, but on a day to day basis, you get to choose. And yet . . . some people will intentionally seek out content (websites, radio stations, television shows, books) knowing that the content will make them mad. You see these same people at protests and counter-protests. They seem to seek and maybe even enjoy feeling angry and feeling like they’re a victim.
It happened to me, and I wasn’t even looking to get angry. I listened to a radio station on my drive to and from work that had a basic political position that I don’t agree with. And that was the reason that I listened to the station – I wanted to be exposed to different opinions. Mine aren’t always right, and I’m more than willing to debate from an honest, open position my fundamental beliefs. From time to time I even change them, but that can’t happen unless I review my beliefs and examine them.
But that wasn’t what was happening. Instead of new ideas to kick around in my mind, I found that the arguments coming from the radio weren’t ideas – they were essentially mindless, direct partisanship. And it made me mad. So started listening to music – but there are only so many times you can hear the same thirty songs from the rock music station. And the morning talk on the music stations was . . . embarrassingly idiotic. I got tired of my CDs, too. So I shut it all down, and now I drive to and from work in silence.
Silence was hard at first. I think that in today’s society we are accustomed to a constant sensory overload from waking until sleep. Confronting eighty minutes of silence a day was a new challenge. And it felt pretty good after a few days.
Outside of our moods, what else do we sacrifice when we get angry about things we can’t control or change?
Our health. Longer term anger increases anxiety levels, and blood pressure.
Anger also crowds out creativity – it kills unique thoughts, kills concentration, and sets a single mood – a bad one – which will keep producing the same thoughts.
And you can choose your mood. And I choose . . . a slight itch under my watchband. That’s a fine mood for a Friday morning!
