Emotions, derived from the Latin word emovere which means to stir up, are agitations or disturbances brought about by strong feelings about someone or something. They are fundamentally, reactions to the satisfaction or the frustration of a need. From our silliest whims to our hearts’ desires, all of our needs fuel our emotions.
We show our emotions at varied levels, all depending on the intensity of the feeling. A hug or kind word makes us feel happy, hence our immediate reaction is to smile but a harsh statement or a physical injury make us miserable, hence we feel the need to cry. A deeper motivation would invoke a deeper emotion. The murder of a loved one would fill someone with anger and in turn, the person may feel the need to achieve vengeance or retribution. Although law states that we can not kill, this strong feeling might invoke the person to disregard the law and take matters into his own hands. Once an emotion is felt, it often drags along other emotions with it. Happiness invokes satisfaction and peace of mind whereas grief brings misery and desperation along with it. Emotions are often confusing. Take love for instance. Usually, being in love is the greatest feeling in the world. We feel like everything’s possible and we generally have a positive outlook in life. However, love can also make us feel miserable. This usually happens when the love we offer is not met with love of equal intensity. This leaves us uncertain on whether we still really want to love or not.
This uncertainty results to the dawn of a time in our lives when we’d really rather be numb. This desire to lose all feeling is more often than not, brought about by pain. The pain of isolation often brings about depression and is in most cases, the cause of suicide. The pain of the death of a loved one makes us question life itself. And the pain of breaking up makes us wish to never love again. Pain is often viewed as an evil in the world and it is feared by most. But pain is truly beautiful once its true purpose has been revealed.
Physically, our bodies feel pain so as to prevent us from seriously harming ourselves or at least to not do something harmful again. It is our body’s way of saying that we should stop. If pain did not exist, we’d always be walking through fire in a cold day or jumping from windows to see what it’s like to fly. We wouldn’t have any regard for our safety. Just as physical pain, emotional pain is also useful even though it’s not exactly the best feeling in the world. Pain plays many roles in our lives. First it is an adviser that tells us what we ought to do to or decide. The possibility of pain makes us think before we act, thus preventing serious disaster. It is also a mentor. It teaches us what to do or at least, what not to do, when faced with the same situations. Lastly, it is an examiner. It tests our courage and shows us how truly strong we are. We may not think that we can face all of the troubles that come in our lives, but being able to stand up after it all makes us see our resiliency. And we can never know that we’ve gotten through all of those hardships when we do not experience pain. Without pain, we will never realize how truly wonderful life is and how great it is when the pain has stopped. Because in truth, it is not pain that’s keeping us from feeling happy, but our fear of actually experiencing pain.
