Emotions are intensified for youth and young adults. I just realized the truth of that yesterday.
I was having a bad day for no apparent reason. Small irritants that are a part of life made me angry. I had a good cry when I went to bed. But my emotions are not as strong as they were when I was younger.
When I was younger, everything felt like life and death. A bad grade, an oral report, an argument with a friend were all so consuming. Every incident seemed to determine the fate of my life. Relationships with guys were especially vulnerable to the emotions. When I was “in love”, I was on cloud nine. When a relationship went south, I was in hell.
When callers ask for Dr. Laura’s advice, she would say, “Do you have a brain? Use it.” She meant don’t act on how you feel. We can feel something very intensely, but our brain is what will guide us to make good decisions.
I compare myself now to me when I was younger, and I can see that my emotions have settled down. I am still a pretty emotional person, but feelings are not so intensified now. I can better understand situations without being clouded by emotions.
Dr. Dobson has a book titled Emotions, Can You Trust Them? The answer is basically No. As much as emotions are a vital part of being human, he explains it this way:
“I have no desire to return our culture to the formality of yesterday, when father was a marble statue and mother couldn’t smile because her corset was too tight. But if our grandparents represented one extreme of emotional repression, today’s Americans have become temperamental yo-yos at the other. We live and breathe by the vicissitudes of our feelings, and for many, the depression of the “lows” is significantly more prevalent than the elation of the “highs.” Reason is now dominated by feelings, rather than the reverse as God intended…emotions must always be accountable to the faculties of reason and will. That accountability is doubly important for those of us who purport to be Christians. If we are to be defeated during life’s spiritual pilgrimage, it is likely that negative emotions will play a dominant role in that discouragement. Satan is devastatingly effective in using the weapons of guilt, rejection, fear, embarrassment, grief, depression, loneliness and misunderstanding. Indeed, human beings are vulnerable creatures who could not withstand these satanic pressures without divine assistance.
Those years as a young adult were rough for me. I wouldn’t want to relive them. I am glad for some maturity I’ve gained with age.