There’s probably a positive, evolutionary reason for having negative feelings you can’t get rid of; they may warn you of danger, give an extra bite of sadness to your songs or poetry, or help you stay attached to your tribe. Whatever advantage they provide, it may have been more helpful in a jungle than in the big city, but either way, if it helps the species survive, it tends to persist, regardless of how much pain it causes you as an individual.
Assuming you’re going to have to live with negative feelings, develop standards for behaving well in spite of them. No, you shouldn’t expect yourself to force smiles so much that they break your face and scare children. You should, however, invite feedback about your behavior from those you trust, so you can be confident that your actions and words don’t hurt people or interfere with your positive strategic goals and, most important, make you act like an asshole.
If you’re self-critical about your negative feelings, you may be tempted to live with people who dislike you as much as you dislike yourself. Naturally, this could set off a vicious cycle that brings out your worst behavior and justifies continuous self-punishment. Instead, seek people who aren’t much bothered by your negativity and who appreciate your positive side. You may be frustrated by their lack of understanding and attention to your supposed worthlessness, but the results will be better for everyone in the long run.
Whether you are forced to live with hate, yearning, envy, or fear, respect what you do with your feelings, not what they do to you. Don’t let them distract you from your usual goals of avoiding unnecessary conflict at home, making a living, and being a good friend.
The more you remember your goals and respect your restraint, the less power your negative feelings will have to shape your actions and reduce your self-respect. You can’t control your negativity, but you can keep it from controlling you.
Quick Diagnosis
Here’s what you wish for and can’t have:
• An improved heart free of hate, envy, fear, and general ugliness
• A way of managing relationships that will prevent or resolve bad feelings
• A way to love the ugly feelings right out of yourself
Here’s what you can aim for and actually achieve:
• Build standards that are not distorted or compromised by negative feelings
• Act decently in spite of the way you really feel
• Respect the way you act decently when you feel malicious, bravely when you’re frightened, determined when you’re tired, etc.
• Bear the pain of living with ugly feelings rather than attacking yourself for having them or attacking others to escape them
Here’s how you can do it:
• Get to know your inner asshole so as to reduce the likelihood it becomes outer
• Every time it gets control, emerge with new lessons about your standards and the triggers that get you to lose control
• Avoid those triggers as best you can, even if it means a longer drive to work that avoids the freeway
• Find accepting friends and an accepting coach
Your Script
Here’s what to tell someone or yourself when you have ugly, nasty thoughts and feelings.
Dear [Me/Family Member/Guy Who Cut Me Off],
I can’t deny that I have [angry/envious/completely vicious] feelings for [you/my child/my fuckhead boss], but I have other feelings as well, and my feelings don’t matter as much as doing the [work/taxes/college application/right thing] without [insert act of rage], and this I can do. I have doubts about my ability to use [yoga/psychoanalysis/watching Too Cute] to achieve more positive feelings, and I am not sure I would like to give up my list of hated [relatives/celebrities/salsas at Chipotle] or be more blissed out and less wrought up than I am. Let me know if you think I have acted badly. Otherwise, I believe my current method of managing my feelings is best for me.
Did You Know . . . That Trying Too Hard to Control Nasty Feelings Can Make You Even More Nasty?
Negative feelings, like the Mafia or LinkedIn, only increase their nagging pull the more you try to break free. If you try to eradicate them entirely by punishing yourself, doing penance through good deeds, and influencing others to do the same, you might think you’re on the path to salvation and that good is winning over evil.
The problem is that, to those who are truly obsessed with eradicating evil, it’s infuriating to meet people who won’t join the cause. You wind up filled with so much of that same ol’ familiar hatred that you want to tell them in a most strained, cheerful-yet-pissed, singsongy, scoldy manner that you would love to stab their faces with the foot of a bar stool.
So beware the excessively virtuous, who never raise their voices except in anger at bad people, whose oversized smiles give you the creeps and show too many teeth, and who use the same, overly cheerful, sugary-sweet tone to speak to adults and children. Helping others is the only thing it’s okay for them to talk about, and they’re ready to help everyone, especially the unappreciative, disgusting idiots who never appreciate their efforts, never heed their advice, and irritate them so much, they have to act even sweeter. So if they offer you help or advice, be a smart idiot and politely decline before running for your life.
There are few things as frustrating as feeling too disorganized, unmotivated, and/or unfocused to accomplish even the smallest task. You can blame a noisy work environment, the wrong colored pen, or the need to watch TV in a timely, spoiler-free manner as the source of your distraction for only so long until you start blaming yourself.
Procrastination, avoidance, and disorganization cause delays and failures that provoke shame, criticism, and even legal issues. If you’re at the point where you’re amazed you finished reading two whole paragraphs before watching Game of Thrones, then this section is for you.
Some people with these problems may act as if they don’t care, or take pleasure in creating expectations they can’t meet and then lying about them, but in reality, they usually care deeply but have become accustomed to cover-ups, apologies, and endless self-defense. They often hate themselves and declare themselves secret self-enemy number one, knowing they’re at fault even when they always seem good at blaming others.
The brighter and more capable they are, the more certain they are that their bad behaviors represent bad choices and a failure to accept and discharge responsibility, and that they could do better if they were better motivated, more reliable, and more honest. Often, their parents, teachers, and supervisors agree that accepting responsibility for their failures seems like the necessary first step toward recovery.
While accepting that you have a problem is in fact the universal first step, accepting responsibility for having it is not. Brain wiring can cause well-motivated, smart people to procrastinate and drop the ball, and nature gives them no choice. The fact that you’re not
