It can’t end like this!

April 9th, 2011 by ben Leave a reply »

[300TH POST unintentionally]

I’m suddenly so stressed. I’ve been taking my spring break so easy; maybe that’s why. It didn’t feel particularly relaxing, though. Maybe this is how retired people feel after the first week of not having to go to work.

Now that spring break proper has come to an end (it is now 11:57 on Friday), and the weekend is beginning, I can’t help but think… it can’t end like this! There was so much, so many things I wanted to do during this break! I was able to do some of them (band rehearsal, binge on good food, play mabi, watch anime all day until it pissed me off too much to continue watching…), but there is so much I didn’t get to do. New opportunities and ideas sprang up this break like weeds. It’s all just so… tiring.

My memory of spring break will probably be of running in the rain today. The rain on the cement gave off this horrible smell. It felt like all of society’s corruption that had seeped into the ground was now coming up, being released. I think I had stomach flu or something today. I couldn’t eat at all, and I felt horrible. Or maybe it was the email I received right after getting up that told me I had a phone interview for the JPL internship I had applied to. I’m normally a rational guy and have okay emotional self-control (when it breaks down it gets really bad though), so I don’t know why that would make my stomach grow butterflies and my legs lose power. So I’m going with the stomach flu argument. I’m not scared of interviews.

This brings me to think about the control I have over my emotions. Note that successful people can control their own emotions, and read the emotions of others in order to manipulate things in their favor. It’s not optional, it’s a requirement — a prerequisite of sorts for success. However, it’s very difficult. It’s been very difficult. When faced with mockery and dislike, even if I know it’s a test or in jest, I tended to break down. Calmness is key. Without mental composure, I’m unable to contemplate responses and others’ intentions, and I will assuredly make deep blunders.

Bad emotions aren’t the only thing I can’t control. I can’t control my happiest emotions either. It may sound cliche, but my most cherished emotion is a fluttery feeling I feel in my heart. I don’t know why I feel it in the physical location of my heart, given that the heart is not involved in any cognitive processes. I get this feeling when somebody treats me with great, undeserved kindness. It happens all too little.

The last time I had this emotion was yesterday, Thursday, during my volunteer shift at the hospital. It was a small thing. They’re always the small things, the things that matter. My coworkers, the fellow employees in my department, were teaching me Spanish. They were small things, like how to roll that “r” sound; where to put the tongue. Luego nos vemos. Let us meet again. BueƱos noches.

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4 comments

  1. k says:

    Yay, Spanish on leafwood instead of Japanese or Chinese like always…

    And yeah, mental composure is very important, and maybe one of the reasons I didn’t make Gov team, but successful people don’t always control their emotions well…

  2. Benji says:

    Yes they do; or at least I can’t name one that doesn’t have mental composure.

    Well I guess we wouldn’t really know if people like Einstein and such had mental composure or not.

    But my mom always cites like, Mao Zedong and how he could read Chaing Kai-shek like a book, and spews all these (pretty cool-sounding) four-word Chinese idioms about Mao.

  3. k says:

    Of course they have mental compsure, but they can lose it at times. And this is sometimes enough to cause their fall.

  4. Benji says:

    Ok fine, successful people tend to control their emotions well, most of the time, while they are successful.

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