158 Don’t Let A nxiety Run Your Life
- The circumstances that led up to the emotion
- The goal you were trying to achieve
Positive emotions are good to a point. If you have ever felt
besieged by your emotions, particularly negative ones, such
as anxiety and fear, you may have found yourself wishing for
endless days of blissful contentment stemming from posi-
tive emotional experiences. After all, who wouldn’t want to
feel happy, content, and satisfied all the time?
It turns out, rather surprisingly, that psychologically
healthy people know that when it comes to positive emo-
tions, more is not necessarily better, and positive emotions
aren’t always preferable to negative ones (Haybron 2014).
Practically, positive emotions are good, but only to a point. In
fact, having an overabundance of positive emotion too often
is similar to eating cake for every meal or repeatedly playing
your new favorite song. At first, it feels great to overindulge,
but eventually, you find that too much of a good thing can
have unintended consequences (like that sick feeling you get
from eating too much sugar or eventually loathing that new
song). Cultivating too much positive emotion, or only posi-
tive emotion, can also be problematic because not all emo-
tions are suited to every context or situation. Imagine, for
example, meeting someone who is cheerful at a funeral or
seeing a friend or colleague joyfully bully someone.
Practice Identif y two or three positive emotion-enhancing strat-
egies that you tend to overuse, even if only slightly, to help regulate
your mood. For example, when nervous, perhaps you think of posi-
tive memories or watch a favorite movie or listen to your favorite
album. Some people rely on friends or family to help them manage