# It's Okay to Feel Bad for a Bit

> "If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies." - Epictetus
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> "Whatever suffering arises, all arises due to attachment; with the cessation of attachment, there is the cessation of suffering." - Pali canon
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> "An arahant would feel physical pain if struck, but no mental pain. If his mother died, he would organize the funeral, but would feel no grief, no sense of loss." - the Dhammapada
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> "Receive without pride, let go without attachment." - Marcus Aurelius

I.

Stoic and Buddhist philosophies are pretty popular these days. I don't like them. I think they're mostly bad for you if you take them too seriously.

About a decade ago I meditated for an hour a day every day for a few weeks, then sat down to breakfast with my delightful (at the time) toddlers and realized that I felt nothing. There was only the perfect crystalline clarity and spaciousness of total emotional detachment. "Oh," I said, and never meditated again.

It's better to sometimes feel bad for a bit, than to feel nothing.

II.

Young adults should probably put some effort into becoming less emotionally reactive. Being volatile makes you unpleasant to be around, and undercuts your ability to achieve pretty much any goals you may have. 

If you have any traumas, it's likely positive-EV for you to devote time and energy to learning some kind of therapy modality with a good evidence base, and then taking the time to resolve those issues.

In my opinion - for most people - once you have fixed about 60% of your emotional reactivity and 90% of your psychological triggers, you have hit a point of diminishing returns. In fact, past that point, I think further investment in making yourself "nonreactive" and "unattached," and removing all minor triggers from your psyche, is pathological from the perspective of actually trying to be happy and to do things with your life.

If your fear of feeling bad for a bit is so great that it causes you to self-obsess, consider that self-obsession is just a more convoluted and drawn-out way of feeling bad.

III.

If you try to do something, and things don't go your way, and you feel bad about that, the problem isn't that you felt bad about it. The problem isn't that you are insufficiently stoic. The problem isn't that you care too much about the outcome. 

The problem ... is that things didn't go your way. You are allowed to feel bad about that, for a little bit.

It's okay to care about things.

I know that somehow this doesn't sound *deeply wise* but I think sometimes we are too wise for our own good.

The solution to the problem isn't to meditate on impermanence or to visualize your mother's funeral. The best thing to do when you feel bad because things didn't go the way you wanted, essentially always, is to determine what you can do to practically address the actual situation as it exists in objective, external reality, and then act upon your decision.

If the impacts of your mistake can be mitigated, then you should use the negative emotion you feel to motivate you to take the actions necessary to do that.

If there's nothing meaningful to be done to mitigate the impact of the damage, then you should use the negative emotion you feel to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that this won't happen again.

You will still feel somewhat bad during this process, but that's okay. The actions you take will make you feel less bad.

And it's okay to feel bad for a bit.

IV.

In fact, it's probably good for you to feel bad for a bit. 

Negative emotions provide motivation for action. Guilt motivates you to avoid making choices you will regret. Anger, in context of an overall emotionally healthy mind, motivates you to overcome fear. Fear, in turn, motivates you to avoid risk, and your sense of risk will become well-calibrated the more things you actually try to do.

Emotional suppression/detachment results in a bias toward inaction. In contrast, a bias toward action cultivates synergy and integration with your emotions, and becomes self-reinforcing. You learn to trust yourself. The more you expose yourself to the risk of feeling bad for a bit, the more experience you gain, and the less likely you are to make a serious mistake that would cause you to feel very bad for a long time.

I think it's good that this community has gradually moved away from the language of akrasia and the conceptual frameworks of hyperanalytical self-awareness that lead to analysis paralysis and emotional suppression. Paul Atreides was not a role model.

There is a big risk that I am misunderstood here as saying that you should do the opposite of the Stoics and just behave emotionally and chaotically. I'm not saying that. I am saying that it's easy to take self-control too seriously.

But it's hard to fit "Take Epictetus 60% Seriously, Meditate for 20 Minutes per Day for 3 Months and Then Stop" on a bumper sticker.

It's okay if this post is misunderstood. 

I'll only feel bad for a bit.