Emotions are actually the driving force behind most of our behavior. Emotions are generally divided into two groups; positive and negative. Negative emotions to be avoided and positive emotions to be practiced and embraced. Negative and positive emotions cannot co-exist. One or the other must dominate. The most powerful negative emotions are things such as fear, greed, anger, lust, hatred, revenge, worry, jealousy and superstition. (All to be avoided)
The most powerful positive emotions are desire, love, faith, courage, romance, sexual attraction, faith, hope and enthusiasm. When you examine your behavior (or actions) you will find that at least one of these emotions is usually behind what you do. That’s all very well if your emotions are positive, as this results in positive behavior and happiness. The danger is in allowing negative emotions to drive your behaviour. The danger of negative emotions is they immediately destroy all peace of mind and every ounce of happiness.
They also tend to affect our conscious thinking, causing us to focus on bad things and the doom and gloom side of everything and to expect the worst. Negative emotions also weaken your immune system and weaken your physical strength. You also tend to attract negative things and negative situations and negative people. Like tends to attract like. The key, then is to be in a predominantly positive emotional state as much as possible. This cannot be done by conscious thinking because emotions are subconscious. It can only be done by changing our behavior. We can only affect our emotional state indirectly. Apart from our actions, other things which affect our emotions are what we read, what we listen to and the words we speak. For example, reading a newspaper will almost always result in suffering from negative emotions, as a result.
Whereas reading a positive book will put you in a positive emotional state. It’s a choice and and within your control. We also have a choice whether to speak positively or speak negatively (sometimes using swear words) Both will affect our emotional state and also our attitude. Words can put us in good moods or bad moods too. The bible says “The tongue has the power of life and death”. (Proverbs 18:21)
Negative emotions also make success impossible. That’s why if we want to become successful and wealthy, we must examine the habits of successful people and emulate them. Otherwise success will elude us. It’s a well known fact that greed causes poverty more than anything else.
Generosity, on the other hand, results in wealth, but one or the other must dominate. Greed will destroy the positive emotion of generosity and generosity, on the other hand will make it impossible to suffer from greed. One cancels the other out. Other negative emotions such as hatred will also repel positive people and also repel opportunities, resulting in poverty and misery.
The emotion of fear also causes us not attempt anything in the first place, thus we are defeated before we even start. Only positive emotions such as courage, faith and hope and having good values such as generosity and helping others, can we hope to be happy and achieve success.
