My Newfound Awareness

As any other child, I experienced those basic emotions in their pure forms: happiness, anger, sadness, jealousy and fear. I picked up the toy, I felt nothing but happiness. My friend snatched the toy out of my hand, I felt nothing but anger. The toy broke, I felt nothing but sadness. Another boy had a better toy, I felt nothing but jealousy. I watched the another’s boys toy break, I felt nothing but fear that mine would do the same. Now, as children, we don’t think much about these emotions. To us, they are things that cause us to feel certain ways, may that be comfortable or uncomfortable.

Most people feel emotions, let them pass, and then just disregard them, which often leaves a mark. Rather that this, I experience the emotion, after which I do something different. After experiencing it, may it be happiness or anger, I take a step back. I contemplate on why it is that I feel the way I feel. For example, when I’m angry I feel agitated and distracted. I stop and think about what exactly agitates me and why. I ponder upon it and finally reach a state in which I accept that stimulant of my emotion. I essentially practice a sort of awareness.

I can remember one very common example of where this awareness has saved me from discomfort. I was driving to school and was already five minutes late to my test. There was a car in the lane that I was in that was not moving, although the light was green. Only after it turned yellow did the car move, rendering me stuck at the red light for another 2 minutes. Immediately I became furious. “WHY THE HELL WOULD ANYONE BE STUPID AND ANNOYING ENOUGH TO DO THAT!” After fuming for a couple of seconds, I stopped and took a step back to see what I had done there. I had unnecessarily gotten very stressed out and raised my blood pleasure. I thought about it for a while and accepted that in the course of events, I happen to be in situation like this and there is nothing I can do about it, so why get stressed out? I proceeded to be in a state of tranquility for the rest of the drive, although I knew that I would be very late.

After doing this for many problems and situations, I noticed a huge improvement in my quality of life. Things that had always bothered me and that I had never understood became things that I accepted as a part of the the course of events. Due to this newfound awareness of mine, I have been dealing with everything in my life in a significantly more mature way that allows me to maintain a comfortable state of equilibrium.