Sometimes Agony and Ecstasy Coexist
source: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/alternative-truths/201006/sometimes-agony-and-ecstasy-co...
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- greywrld
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I've never given it much thought before, but I have felt both negative as well as positive emotions simultaneously.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/alternative-truths/201006/sometimes-agony-an...
I ran my first timed race in Central Park last weekend, and I began the race alongside several Ethiopian superstars who finished the race just as I passed the halfway mark. I committed the schoolboy error of going out too hard, my exuberance pushing me to keep the Ethiopians in sight for the first mile. For the remaining four miles, I experienced a powerful mix of ambivalent emotions. On the one hand, I was ecstatic to be surrounded by hundreds of running comrades, and on the other hand my body was punishing me for pushing too hard early in the race.
Emotions arise from deep within our reptilian brains, and we sometimes mistake their primitiveness for simplicity. When someone says they're feeling a certain way, we have a pretty good idea of what that means; we have an intuitive sense of what it means to be happy and sad, hateful and enamored, proud and embarrassed--but what dawned on me during my blissfully painful run was how often we experience two seemingly contradictory emotions simultaneously.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/alternative-truths/201006/sometimes-agony-an...
I ran my first timed race in Central Park last weekend, and I began the race alongside several Ethiopian superstars who finished the race just as I passed the halfway mark. I committed the schoolboy error of going out too hard, my exuberance pushing me to keep the Ethiopians in sight for the first mile. For the remaining four miles, I experienced a powerful mix of ambivalent emotions. On the one hand, I was ecstatic to be surrounded by hundreds of running comrades, and on the other hand my body was punishing me for pushing too hard early in the race.
Emotions arise from deep within our reptilian brains, and we sometimes mistake their primitiveness for simplicity. When someone says they're feeling a certain way, we have a pretty good idea of what that means; we have an intuitive sense of what it means to be happy and sad, hateful and enamored, proud and embarrassed--but what dawned on me during my blissfully painful run was how often we experience two seemingly contradictory emotions simultaneously.
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- groups:
- Psychology
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- tags:
- Emotions
