8.10.2010

What are you seeking?

Excerpted from Seth Godin. Emphasis mine.

"Occasionally we encounter emotions at random. More often, we have no choice, because there’s something that needs to be done, or an event that impinges itself on us. But most often, we seek emotions out, find refuge in them, just as we walk into the living room or the den.

Stop for a second and reread that sentence, because it’s certainly controversial. I’m arguing that more often than not, we encounter fear or aggravation or delight because we seek it out, not because it’s thrust on us.

Why check your email every twenty minutes? It’s not because it needs checking. It’s because the checking puts us into a state we seek out. Why yell at the parking attendant with such gusto? Teaching him a lesson isn’t the point--no, in that moment, it’s what we want to do, it’s a room we choose to hang out in. It could be something as prosaic as getting involved in a flame war online every day, or checking your feeds at midnight or taking a shot or two before dinner. It’s not something you have to do, it’s something you choose to do, because going there takes your emotions to a place you’ve gotten used to, a place where you feel comfortable, even if it makes you unhappy.

...This insight about our moods and your brand is all well and good, but it becomes essential once you realize that there are some rooms you’re spending way too much time in, that these choices are taking away from your productivity or your happiness.

Why are you going there again?"

Read the full post here.

4 comments:

lauren said...

Wow. That hits home.

Sara said...

MEEE too.

Brian S said...

Very nice....

Since I lived in a testosterone filled frat house for two years, I saw my fair share of guys drinking down their sadness, anger, what have you, in order to get drunk and get angrier and break stuff. Instead of going through those healthy emotions and facing reality, they go back to the bottle and take solice in that fact that they know where they'll end up: passed out with a bloody knuckle. But that was much more comfortable than actively going through the emotional/logical thought process of dealing with their demons.

I think evryone could do a better job at making sure they visit those 'rooms' more often, and not just rearrange the furniture in a select few.

Sara said...

B-ri--I can only imagine. Thanks for the comment, little brother. "Rearranging the furniture"...nicely put.