Control

A sage saying, “Control your emotions, or they will control you.”  We cannot prevent an emotion from coming up into our consciousness.  Better there than hidden away, secretly working on us.  It is what we do with the emotion that matters.  If I feel anger, I can leap into trying to punish a person, or situation to satisfy my anger.  The uncontrolled anger sees the problem as out there and not in me.  On the other hand, I find that when I respond negatively to a situation, with anger, judgment, distain, I have to look first at myself and see what is the matter with me, that I got angry.  The situation could be bad but anger acted out is not the solution.  If you have a disagreement with your neighbor, you don’t burn down their house.  Besides, your own home might catch on fire.