“Don’t lose your temper; use it.” - Dolly Parton

 “Don’t lose your temper; use it.” - Dolly Parton (1946- ). Joan River television interview, 26 November 1993

- We often hide from our emotions. Anger is just one of these, the most famously dangerous one. Grief, sorrow, joy, fear, need, and melancholy, these all have their stories to tell us as well, they push us to move onward. What is dangerous for us is when these emotions control us so completely that we can do nothing but feel, do nothing but act them out in the most direct and destructive manner. The human being is both rational and emotional, feeling and thinking, and it is through the utilization of both parts of our personas that we are best able to travel through this life. When we are ruled by our emotions we experience problems, and we experience those problems too, when we pretend that our emotions are not there. What we are feeling, is something we are feeling for a reason - our hearts do not bleed in vain. 

So, this quote suggests, use your feelings. Find it, free it, factor it into your decisions. Use the energy that it releases, and direct that power toward some goal. Understand your own mind, and half the battle is done already, and you are already prepared for victory. If we, on the other hand, bottle ourselves up and spend half our time fighting against ourselves, then the greater part of the battle is already lost. We have a heart, but we also have a mind - and the mind is the directing power, while the heart draws the line in the sand whereupon we stand.


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