Emo(tional) Rooms

I love the title of this article, even if it has nothing to do with whiny preteens being upset that their life is so miserable with their 2009 Jeep Wrangler and complete lack of Abercrombie apparel.

So if I’m not talking about kids getting overly emotional and crying in a corner of their room, then what am I talking about?

I am talking about the abstract but applicable concept of viewing emotions like rooms in a house.

This isn’t some evolved game of hide and go seek where you undoubtedly find yourself hiding in the closet of your parent’s bedroom because, “no one will ever think to look there”.

What if I told you that everyone has a set group of emotional states that they enter and exit during any given day, like predesignated states that people enter when certain conditions are met.

For example, if I was to continue that game of hide and go seek and I see you go for the hiding spot under your Grandmother’s bed and tell the seeker that you are hiding there after I get caught; you would likely do the following:

A) Cry

B) Complain

C) Get Angry

D) Tattle Tale

E) All of the above

The key here is understanding that certain events caused you to trigger your desire to enter the “pissed off at the world” emotional state that many of us have.

The same situation could arise when you ask someone to do something, but they ignore you and blow off their responsibility to you, you are likely to enter the same emotional state.

This emotional state occurs and ends in the exact same way you enter a room in a house. You pick a room, you enter it for a set time, when you are ready you leave.

Everyone has a set number of emotional rooms in their house, and at any given moment you have the ability to not only determine what rooms you enter during a given situation, but what rooms even exist in your metaphysical house.

I know this is crazy abstract and a bit transient, but you and I both know that we all choose to feel happy, sad, pissed off, adventurous, etc

Think about the implications that are possible with this, you could literally lock yourself out of certain emotional states by simply refusing to enter those rooms during specific trigger mechanisms.

All you have to do is view emotional states like rooms in a house, you have just as strong of an option to enter your “I am take over the world because I am having such a kickass time” room when you are feeling depressed as you can enter your “life sucks and so does everyone else” room when you are feeling pretty damn good.

The key is understanding and knowing that you have a choice

Understand that this whole damn article is for shit if you view your emotions like Ron Burgundy in Anchorman. You can escape your glass case of emotion by deciding the what, when, and where of your emotional states. This will not only give you more control over your life, but it will empower you with the ability to be unwavering and relentless in the pursuit of all great things in life

So to wrap this whole hippie concept up, stop visiting the rooms that suck you emotionally and redirect some time to the rooms that will better serve to make your life more enjoyable. Because while you watch that meter maid write a ticket for your car, it’s probably not worth entering your bastard emotional room and bringing down the wrath of a thousand suns upon him.

Taking the sunny room

Gabriel