We are not responsible for emotions, but of what we do with emotions.
Jorge Bucay
Happiness, sadness, surprise, anger, fear and disgust. These are six emotions that Paul Ekman classified as basic ones.
Did you notice that out of these 6, only several are “accepted” by the society we live in? Happiness is the one.
Do you agree that we try to live in a “happy” society? And depending on the cultural background the act of expressing emotions might be acceptable or not. I think that in majority of cases we avoid sadness, fear and anger. We consider that these are “wrong and evil” emotions. Remember last time you felt these “wrong” emotions, what is the first reaction of your family, your friends, people that care about you? That’s right, the first thing they offer is their consolation, their understanding and trying to cheer you up. This is what we expect from them. But what happens next? We try to pretend that nothing has happened, that the sadness will be gone soon, and we keep up.
We try to cover our negative emotions. And this is a trap.