Why do I Feel Bad?

If you won the lottery, the best educated guess is that you would feel good about what happened.

Why do you not feel bad about winning the lottery?

Since it seems we feel good for a reason and feel bad for another reason, then there must be some logic to emotions.

So in order to figure out the logic in emotions, lets look at the different thoughts we can have when we are told that we have won the lottery.

Good Thoughts
- I can go on a vacation  
- I can buy a new car
- I can be debt free
- I can donate some money to help a special cause

Bad Thoughts
- I did not win as much as that other person
- The Government is going to take half
- People are going to hate me because I have money and they do not
- People are going to expect me to give money away

To better understand emotions, we’re going to look at the negative thoughts, which unfortunately cause negative emotions. (So yes you can feel bad winning the lottery).

Notice that every bad emotion involves either:

• Someone trying to control you;
• Trying to control someone else;
• Someone judging you;
• Judging yourself; or
• Judging someone else.

To see what I mean, I will list a series of actions that cause negative emotion and each one will relate to being judged or controlled.

• Killing someone - A form of control.
  • The person who dies does not want to die, but the killer did the act against their will

• Lying to someone – A form of control.
  • The person who lies is someone who is trying to say things to get something from the other person without their consent

• Feeling unworthy – A form of judgment
  • The person who is feeling unworthy of anything is judging themselves (or comparing) versus others based on their own idea of what should be worthy

These are but a few of hundreds of different reasons why people feel bad and you will begin to see that every time you feel bad, there is always a form of control or judgment being placed on either yourself or someone else.

If every negative emotion comes from judging and controlling thoughts, then if everybody stopped controlling or judging people in anyway, wouldn’t people stop feeling bad?

YES

So why then do people control and judge anything if it just makes themselves and other people feel bad?

Why Do We Have Judging and Controlling Thoughts?

To answer this, lets look at objects. If I were to ask you how you eat your food, you could respond that you use your utensils to pick up your food. If that is the case, then aren’t you controlling something to get what you want? What if you preferred chopsticks to a fork and knife? Aren’t you judging your utensils? Of course you are. However, if you didn’t control or judge those utensils when you wanted to eat, you wouldn’t be able to eat at all. Since you will go hungry if you don’t, you have to control and judge those utensils.

So controlling and judging thoughts are to help you get what you want with objects. Without judging and controlling objects, you would never be able to eat your food, drive your car, or read this website, which is something that you want to do.

Therefore, we can conclude that in order to get what you want from objects, you have to judge and control them, which is the reason for judging and controlling thoughts. However, we also know that we shouldn’t judge or control people. This means that negative emotion is coming from the idea that someone is treating either themselves or someone else like an object. It is this confusion of an object and a living being that is causing negative emotion.

What is the difference between an object and a living being?

The reason is because objects don’t change, but we do. Since objects do not change, we can make the judgment that this glass is broken and it can’t be fixed because it will stay that way forever and will not become fixed on its own. However, since living beings change, because we change thought, we cannot make the judgment that this person is shy because the person can change into someone who is confident by changing how they view themselves.

We Feel Bad Because We Confuse What is an Object and What is a Living Thing.

Therefore, the reason why you feel bad is because you are judging, or expecting, others or yourself to act in a specific way, just like an object. So when you expect or judge, your body is telling you to stop thinking that way by making you feel bad. Thus the reason why we feel bad is because we confuse what is an object and what is a living thing.