Sara Says,

"Stop Taking So Much Notice of How You Feel"

I stumbled upon an article the other day titled "10 Simples Way to Save Yourself From Messing Up Your Life" by Adrian Savage. Because I felt that these ideas illustrated a complete switch from most advice given in this self-involved world, I thought I would add my two cents.

WHOA. That is funny. I am so self-involved that I could add to his article about not being so self-involved. Narcissistic Sara.

This is what Mr. Savage has to say about noticing how you feel all of the time...

"Stop taking so much notice of how you feel. How you feel is how you feel. It’ll pass soon. What you’re thinking is what you’re thinking. It’ll go too. Tell yourself that whatever you feel, you feel; whatever you think, you think. Since you can’t stop yourself thinking, or prevent emotions from arising in your mind, it makes no sense to be proud or ashamed of either. You didn’t cause them. Only your actions are directly under your control. They’re the only proper cause of pleasure or shame."

He's right. We dwell on emotions and thoughts to the point of detriment. If we look at our lives, moments of action or inaction determine our pleasure and our pain. Sure, pleasure and pain are emotions, but they will pass. Instead of looking back on our feelings, we tend to look back at the moments.

We all know people who dwell on their emotions and it only leads them to more emotions. All of the emotions paralyze them into inaction. I am not saying that taking action will always yield positive results. Sometimes taking a rash action can result in a temporary pain.

We all know people that use their emotional gauge 100% of the time to make decisions of action. I don't want to be a zombie and not feel, but I want to recognize when my emotions are not serving me well.

Personally, I have a tendency to be an open book of emotions and feelings. I have invested those feelings on the actions of others and nothing could lead to dissatisfaction more successfully than this strategy. Not that I don't fall back into this pattern of emotional wallowing, but I try to think and act like Mr. Savage shares...

"Only your actions are directly under your control."

At this point, we continue to put ourselves out there, but it feels good to have it all under your control. I rarely speak words of wisdom, but I truly believe that it is our reactions to moments that shape how we see the world. I hope I can react to the world with 80% reason and 20% emotion.

I hope this didn't sound too much like a lecture or an episode My So-Called Life.