Forming emotions

I just had somewhat of a revelation. It may be common sense to most people, but I am a thinker more than a feeler these days, and the way emotions work is at times pretty confusing. There are plenty of times I feel something I don't want to; or there is a feeling absent that should be present.

But you can't will emotions to come and go as you please. They aren't light switches, they're not binary. They don't even exist on a linear scale.

Emotions are like water. It doesn't choose where to go. It doesn't care where it goes. It goes where the path takes it. The events in our lives, the things we choose to do and the things that happen to us, are the rocks and river banks that shape our emotions.

There are a few points I'm trying to make with this. One is that sometimes the emotions get too strong and break through a dam or river bank, and change the events in your life.

The other is that when our emotions are off the path we want, you can't will them back in to place. You have to shape your life, with real events, people and actions.