FOREX DIARY

Footnotes

Philosophers have been trying to nail this good/right thing down for, oh, about 2,500 years. So don't get down on yourself if you don't get it on your first.

try. Sadly, the American Dream has mutated into this mass delusional form of "what feels good is what is right" type thing. It's arguably at the root of a lot of our social and cultural problems at the moment.

Look, I know you think that feeling sad or angry or anxious is important. That it matters. Maybe you think that because you feel like you’ve been shitting your bile, it matters. But it doesn’t. Feelings are just things that happen. The meanings we construct around them—what matters and what doesn’t—come later.

There are only two reasons in life to do anything: a) because it feels good, or b) because it’s what you believe is good or right. Sometimes those two reasons go together. If something feels good AND is the right thing to do, that’s great. Let’s have a party and eat cake.

But often, they don’t go together. There are things that feel bad but are right (getting up at 5am and going to the gym, hanging out with Grandma Joanie in the afternoon and making sure she’s breathing), or things that feel great but are bad (most things involving penises).

Acting on emotions is easy. You feel it. You do it. It’s like scratching an itch. There’s a pleasant feeling that follows. A quick satisfaction. But then the satisfaction disappears as quickly as it came.

Acting on the good/useful is difficult. For a person, knowing what is good/right is not always obvious. You often have to step back and think

about it carefully. Often we are vague about our conclusions or struggle with lower motivations.

But when we do the right/good thing, the positive effects last longer. We feel proud when we remember it years later. We tell friends and family and think of a small gift and draw graffiti on the office wall and say, "Oh, I did that!" when a coworker comes in and asks why there is a goat

shaped frisbee on the bookshelf (don't ask me why).

The point is: doing good builds self-esteem and adds meaning to your life.

"HACK" THE BRAIN

So should we ignore all emotions and always do good? Simple

Like a million other things in life, it’s simple. But simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy.

The problem is that the brain doesn’t like to feel conflicted about making decisions. It doesn’t like uncertainty or ambiguity and will do mental acrobatics to avoid any discomfort. And the brain’s favorite way to do it is to try to convince itself that what feels good is the same as what is good.

You know you shouldn't eat ice cream. But your brain says, "Hey, you've had a rough day, a little won't kill you." And you're like, "Hmm, that makes sense! Thanks!" What feels good just feels right. And then you gulp down a box of Cherry Garcia without any shame. You know you shouldn't cheat on a test, but your brain says, "You have to work two jobs to pay for college, unlike the rich kids in your class. You deserve a break," and then you look at someone else's answer and, surprise, what feels good is what feels right.

You know you should vote, but you tell yourself that the system is rotten, and besides, your vote isn't worth anything. So you sit

home and play with that new plane that probably isn't even allowed to fly in your neighborhood. But fuck it, who cares? This is America and the point of living here is to

be inundated with whatever you want. It's like a sixth amendment.

If you do this long enough—if you convince yourself that whatever feels good is good—your brain will actually mix

up the two concepts. Your brain will start to think that the point of living is to feel great, as often as possible.

And once that happens, you start to fool yourself into believing that your feelings matter. And once that happens, hug…

Now if you’re feeling wrong, think about it for a second. All the things that are messed up in your life, they’re probably because you’ve been relying too much on your feelings. You’ve been too impulsive. Or too self-centered and you think you’re the center of the universe. Emotions have a way of doing that, you know? They make you think you’re the center of the universe. And I hate to be the one to tell you, that’s not true.

A lot of young people hate to hear this because they grew up with parents who worshiped their emotions when they were little, and protected them, and tried to buy them candy corn and swimming lessons to make sure they were always good and protected.

WHEN THEY DISCOVER THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE, A LOT OF PEOPLE WILL BE DISAPPOINTED THEY ARE NOT IT

Sadly, these parents do this because they are too emotionally dependent, because they can't bear the pain of seeing their kids struggle, even for a moment. They don't realize that children need to play with their wings enough to develop cognitively and emotionally, that experiencing failure is actually what leads to success, that always having good feelings is the equivalent of flying first-class into friendless adulthood.

Here’s the problem with managing your life around emotions:

1. Your emotions are yours alone. You alone experience them. Your emotions can’t tell you what’s best for your mother or your career or your neighbor’s dog. They can’t tell you what’s best for the environment. Or what’s best for the next Lithuanian parliament. They can only tell you what’s best for you, and even that is debatable.

EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!

2. Emotions are temporary. They only exist in the moment they are present. Emotions can’t tell you what’s good for you next week or a year or 20 years from now. They can’t tell you what was best for you when you were a kid or what you should have learned in school. They can only tell you what’s best for you right now… and even that is debatable.

3. Emotions are not accurate. Have you ever been talking to a friend and thought you heard them say something horrible and mean and started to get angry but they didn’t actually say anything like that, you were just bored? Or have you ever been very jealous and upset with someone close to you for a completely imaginary reason? Like their phone died and you started to think they hated you and never liked you and were just using you because you had tickets to see Boy George? Or have you ever been so excited about something that you thought would make you a cool guy, only to realize it was just a learning experience and you made a lot of people who cared about you angry? Feelings are sometimes very far from the truth. And that’s the problem.

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO OVERCOME EMOTIONS?

What I’ve just said is not surprising. In fact, you’ve probably tried to overcome some of your hateful emotions and impulses and failed.

The problem is that when you start to have feelings, they multiply. It’s like whack-a-mole. They bounce from place to place.

That’s because we don’t just have feelings about experiences, we also have feelings about our feelings. I call these “meta-emotions” and they ruin everything

There are four types of meta-emotions: feeling bad about feeling bad (self-loathing), feeling bad about feeling good (guilt), feeling good about feeling bad (self-righteousness), and feeling good about feeling good (ego/narcissism)

Let me put them in a nice little chart for you to look at:

HERE ARE YOUR META-EMOTIONS

Feeling bad about feeling bad

(Self-loathing)

Excessive self-criticism

- Anxious/neurotic behavior

Emotional Kim

Fraudulently pretending to be nice

Feeling like there’s something wrong with you

Feeling bad about feeling good

(Guilt)

Extreme guilt and feeling like you don’t deserve to be happy

Constantly comparing yourself to others

Feeling like there must be something wrong, even when things are going well

- Unnecessary criticism and negativity

Feeling Good About Feeling Bad

(Self-Righteousness)

- Moral Anger

Contempt for Others

Feeling You Deserve Something Others Don't

Always Seeking Victimhood and Powerlessness

Feeling Good About Feeling Good

(Pride/Narcissism)

- Self-Glorification

Overestimating yourself, a Delusionally Positive Self-Perception

Can't Take Failure or Rejection

- Avoiding Confrontation or Discomfort

Always Self-Absorbed

Meta-Emotions are part of the stories we tell ourselves about our emotions. They make us feel justified in being jealous. They reward our self-esteem. They bury us in our own pain.

They are essentially a sense of what is reasonable and what is not. They are our own agreements about how we should and should not react emotionally.

But emotions don’t answer what to do. Emotions are pajamas, okay?

And instead, these meta-emotions tend to dig deep into our hearts, and more.

If you always feel good about feeling good, you’ll be self-absorbed and feel superior to everyone around you. If good feelings make you feel bad about yourself, you’ll become a walking, talking mass of guilt and shame, thinking that you don’t deserve anything, have earned nothing, and have nothing of value to offer others or the world around you.

And then there are those who feel bad about feeling bad. These “positive thinkers” live in fear that any suffering means there’s something terribly wrong with them. This is the Feedback Loop from Hell that so many of us are forced into by our culture, our families, and the self-help industry in general. But perhaps the worst meta-emotion of all is one that’s becoming increasingly common: feeling good about feeling bad. People who feel good about feeling bad enjoy a certain righteous rage. They feel superior to their struggles, that they’re the ones who are sacrificed in this cruel world. The people who embrace this kind of hyper-victimization are the ones who want to ruin other people’s lives on the internet, the ones who want to parade and label politicians or businessmen or celebrities who are doing their best in this difficult, complicated world.

But emotions don’t answer what to do. Emotions are pajamas, okay?

And instead, these meta-emotions tend to dig deep into our hearts, and more.

If you always feel good about feeling good, you’ll be self-absorbed and feel superior to everyone around you. If good feelings make you feel bad about yourself, you’ll become a walking, talking mass of guilt and shame, thinking that you don’t deserve anything, have earned nothing, and have nothing of value to offer others or the world around you.

And then there are those who feel bad about feeling bad. These “positive thinkers” live in fear that any suffering means there’s something terribly wrong with them. This is the Feedback Loop from Hell that so many of us are forced into by our culture, our families, and the self-help industry in general.

But perhaps the worst meta-emotion of all is one that’s becoming increasingly common: feeling good about feeling bad. People who feel good about feeling bad enjoy a certain righteous rage. They feel superior to their struggles, that they’re the ones who are sacrificed in this harsh world. The people who embrace this kind of hyper-victimization are the ones who want to ruin other people’s lives on the internet, who want to parade and label politicians or businessmen or celebrities who are doing their best in this difficult, complicated world.

A lot of the social conflict we’re experiencing today is the result of these meta-emotions. The rioting mobs on both the left and the right The rich see themselves as victims and special because of the unjustified pain and adversity they endure. Greed increases as the rich re-invent themselves because they are rich, accompanied by increased anxiety and depression as the lower and middle classes grow to hate them for being left behind.

These are not just words we tell ourselves, but also words the media weaves. The host of a right-wing show stokes self-righteousness, addicting viewers to irrational fears that humanity is rotten. Political satires on the left have the same effect, but instead of fear, they appeal to intelligence and arrogance. Consumer culture pressures you to make decisions based on good

feelings and then rewards you for them, while religion tells us to feel bad about how bad we feel

CONTROL MEANING, NOT EMOTIONS

To dispel these narratives, we come back to a simple truth: emotions don’t necessarily mean anything. They only mean what we let them.

Maybe I’m sad today. But there are different psychological reasons why I’m sad today. Maybe some of the other reasons aren’t. But I get to decide how important they are—whether they say something about my character or whether it’s just another bad day.

This is a skill sorely lacking these days: the ability to separate meaning from emotion, to decide that just because you feel this way doesn’t mean your life is that way.

Emotions are shit. Sometimes good things will make you feel bad. Sometimes bad things will make you feel good. That doesn’t change the fact that they’re still bad. Sometimes you’ll feel bad about feeling good about something bad and you’ll feel good about feeling bad about something t—fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck the feelings.

This doesn’t mean you should ignore your emotions completely. Emotions matter. But they matter not for the reasons we think they do. We think they matter because they say something about us, about the world, and about our relationship to them. But they don’t say anything like that. There’s no meaning attached to emotions. Sometimes you hurt for a good reason. Sometimes for a bad reason.

And sometimes for no reason at all. The hurt itself is neutral. The reason is separate.

The point is that you get to decide. And many of us have either forgotten or never realized that. But we decide what our pain means. Just as we decide what our success means.

And often, any answer will hurt like hell, except for one. And that answer is nothing.

Footnotes Philosophers have been trying to nail this good/right thing down for, oh, about 2,500 years. So don't get down on yourself if you don't get it on your first.

try. try. Sadly, the American Dream has mutated into this mass delusional form of "what feels good is what is right" type thing. It's arguably at the root of a lot of our social and cultural problems at the moment.