Emotions

Emotions signal threats and rewards. Much like a compass that guides us in the right direction, emotions have the power to guide us to the right actions.

For example, when a child commits a mistake, she might get scared and lie to her parents about it, or avoid confronting them for fear of punishment.

Her parents may eventually discover what their child did and the kid, in all probability, will end up facing the same consequences that she was trying to avoid. In this instance, listening and responding to the ‘fear’ emotion proved futile to the child.

However, the same emotion (fear) would have proven helpful for someone being chased by a wild animal in the forest. In that situation, running to avoid confronting the savage beast would have been the correct decision.

It is therefore, crucial to judge when to trust emotional triggers and act on them, and when not to; in other words, it is essential for us to understand how to regulate or control our emotions so we could use them optimally.