Feeling Words...
Feeling words are not really that big of a deal to very many people, but are everything to one group of people: Our children. When we are a child we are blissfully ignorant. A boy grows up thinking life is all about ninjas, muscle shirts, & cool things that go "BOOM". A girl grows up thinking life is just fairies, make-up, and unicorns. Eventually, we are exposed to the ugly truth of life: That friends are mean, you have to work, and the beautiful ironies. But it is easy to forget what REALLY affects or decisions in life. It is our FEELINGS. When a child first associates a feeling they are having with a word, it will forever be seared into their minds. The human brain only uses 20% of the 100% that we have. So, does it not make sense that our brains remember everything, just not in the way that we think it "remembers"? Just food for thought. In my opinion there needs to be a serious re-vamping of our "feeling words" as I find them too overly generalized and confusing.
For instance, fear is a very real feeling and should be acknowledged. But the definition of fear is too broad. This is my definition of fear. Fear is an alertness to a danger either physically, emotionally/mentally, or spiritually. This alertness could present us with a choice that will either define us as courageous or cowardly, but ALWAYS within our OWN minds. That's not to say that others won't judge us, but fear is still ALWAYS within our own minds. Where one person may only care about how they percieve their fear, others care about how other people percieve them and this is in itself a different type of fear that becomes a choice. What we humans tend to conveniently forget or downplay is how fear drives us. If a little boy is afraid of a spider, his fear can drive him to run away, or drive him to face his fear and step on it, which in turn; eventually, his facing his fear will in-turn cause him to overcome his fear of spiders.
Which leads me to my next word: Strength. Many kids (especially boys) will associate this feeling with physicality. We adults understand there are many different types of strength, but the simplest way to categorize them is physically, emotionally/mentally, or spiritually. This is my definition of strength: TRUE strength has nothing to do with force. It is overcoming pain. To become physically strong you must work our which is hard, painful work. To become emotionally/mentally strong you must weather a lot of negative feelings, and to become spiritually strong you must have felt hopeless and falter your faith to have your strength measured in an appropriate/equal degree. But when I was a child I thought as a child. I reasoned as a child and when I felt physically weak, I reasoned that being violent was the answer to become physically strong.
Happiness is my next word. Being happy is something we associate with getting what we want. When everything is going in our favor and we are getting whatever we want in life, we associate this with happiness. Over time, this turns into a tragic addiction as we all understand how rare and unattainable it is to get what we want all the time, even most of the time. If we associate this feeling of happiness to getting what we want, everything else is a form of anxiety as we try to constantly reach that feeling of happiness again. We inject our lives with possessions, experiences, and even drugs to reach this level of happiness again, but since we rarely get what we want for extended periods of time, we "chase" that feeling subconsciously through these narcassistic avenues. Here is my definition of happy, and it is simple: contentness. Learning how to live life on life's terms. We can all combat feelings of lonliness, depression, or hopelessness by self expression like writing, music, art, etc. or by stepping out of our lament and helping others because every SINGLE person enjoys helping their friends and loved ones
-Ryan Mita
