Rules of Thinking, The

RULE 23

Evaluate your emotions

Thoughts and feelings are not the same thing, and you don’t have to be able to rationalise your feelings in order to justify them. It’s perfectly fine to feel angry or sad or frustrated or depressed without having to be able to explain why. Feelings are always OK, because they just are. What you do with them might not always be acceptable – the fact you feel frustrated doesn’t justify rudeness – but the frustration just is what it is. People who say, ‘Don’t feel like that, it doesn’t make sense’ are making no sense themselves. I’ve heard comments like, ‘Calm down, there’s no need to be angry …’ but anger isn’t driven by logical need. It’s a thing that just happens sometimes.

Nevertheless, while no one should ...