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Emotion

【Depression】A depressive is driving down a country road and has a flat tire. He looks in his trunk for a jack. Not finding one, he spots a farmhouse about a quarter-mile away with a truck in the front yard and says to himself, “I’ll go borrow the farmer’s jack.” As the stranded motorist approaches the house, he is feeling bad—one, for failing to have a jack; two, for having to depend on someone else for help. As he gets nearer the farmhouse, he begins to expect rejection and to get angry over that expectation. As he becomes more and more angry at his unmet dependency needs in the past, he projects to the farmer the anger he feels toward himself for needing the jack and toward others for disappointing him. By the time he knocks on the door and the farmer opens it, the depressive yells, “Keep your jack!” This will most likely guarantee that he doesn’t get the jack, so the motorist walks back, re-convinced that you can’t depend on people.

Very often our outlook and expectations determine the results.

【Depression】A man and his wife who were on a long trip stopped at a full-service gas station. After the station attendant had washed their car’s windshield, the man in the car said to the station attendant, “It’s still dirty. Wash it again.”

So the station attendant complied. After washing it again, the man in the car angrily said, “It’s still dirty. Don’t you know how to wash a windshield?”

Just then the man’s wife reached over, removed her husband’s glasses from his face, and cleaned them with a tissue. Then he put them back on and behold—the windshield was clean!

Our mental attitude has a great deal to do with how we look at things. The whole world can appear pretty bleak if we have a depressed mental attitude. Yet how bright the world can appear if we have a joyful attitude of hope.

【Depression】Karl Menninger, a famous psychiatrist, once gave a lecture on mental health and was answering questions from the audience. “What would you advise a person to do,” asked one, “if that person felt a nervous breakdown coming on?”

Most people expected Menninger to reply: “Consult a psychiatrist.” To their astonishment, he replied, “Lock up your house, go across the railway tracks, find someone in need, and then do something to help that person.”

【Emotions】The human personality is said to consist of roughly four-fifths emotions and one-fifth intellect. This means that our decisions are arrived at on the basis of 80 percent emotion and only 20 percent intellect. To engage in a confrontation, or even a discussion, without taking emotions into account is to be only 20 percent effective in your dealings with people.

【Man’s Anger】Thomas Jefferson said "When angry, count to 10; when very angry count to 100." Mark Twain changed it and said, "When angry, count to 4; when very angry, swear."