Notes on: Managing One's Emotions

'Managing One's Emotions' is taken from the course 'Managing Happiness' by Arthur Brooks on edX.org.

Hindu thinkers and philosophers have compared managing one's emotions to an elephant walking through a village, there isn't much you can do to stop it, if the elephant was left to run wild, but when there is someone on top of the elephant that person can actually direct the elephant to where they want it to go and even get it to do productive things like pick up logs. Understanding the elephant's power and learning to control it is how we need to treat our emotions.

Some people might naturally have high-negative affect, but that does not mean that they need to let it manage them all the time. They can learn to manage themselves despite it and perhaps even turn some of it into a means to a more positive end.

Many people have successfully managed to understand their emotions and active their prefrontal cortex, which is the equivalent of putting someone on the elephant. They then use this to create art or relate more to people who are suffering.

High-negative affect can become something that is valuable for an individual when channelled this way, and it can also be valuable in a team setting as well. Everyone has a different place on the scale, and someone with a high-negative affect can help think of worse case scenarios and ways to reduce risk. Having a variety of personality types helps increase diversity, which leads to more creativity and better problem solving.

As long as you know how to manage your affect, and ensure it is not reactionary (managing you), then you can gain better control and actually use it to be more productive.