“Your feelings aren’t a choice, your behavior is.”
The first time I heard that quote it left me speechless— and for those of you that know me, that’s no easy task.
It resonated with me because how often do we treat our feelings like they control our behavior?
If you’re anything like me then the answer would be… often, as in 99.9% of the time.
But here’s the thing: what you value will dictate whether you allow yourself to be overcome by your feelings which then dictate your actions or in the midst of your feelings you still choose to behave without allowing those feelings to control you.
You can have feelings, and choose not to express them outwardly. That’s what self-control is— it’s a sacred virtue— and for my Christian friends, evidence of the fruit of Holy Spirit inside of you.
For example, I can’t choose the people I am attracted to or develop feelings for. But I can CHOOSE to control my behavior around them, or I could CHOOSE not to. But regardless of what I choose, it’s still a choice.
But here’s the problem, or rather the interesting dichotomy— so many movies, tv shows, songs or other sources of entertainment and influences teach us this idea of, “it can’t be wrong if it feels so right.”
So we use our feelings to dictate what’s right and wrong, not objective truth, because that’s subject to whoever wants to believe it or not believe it.
We live in a world based on consumer culture. Those surges of dopamine and oxytocin are what we are addicted to. And it’s proven because of how products and services are marketed: it’s to make life “easier, better, more convenient, less work, more enjoyable” and it can be accomplished RIGHT NOW (or perhaps in 2 days or less if it’s from Amazon).
So we live in this dopamine and oxytocin addicted consumer culture, and we really don’t reinforce this idea of self-control. We feel an urge, we satisfy it— one way or another. Delayed gratification and self-control are used as dirty curse words to convey “less fun and less fulfillment through more rigidity, standards and rules”.
When I asked my ex why he chose to cheat, he said that he saw things in me that he didn’t like. I acknowledged those things and agreed that I didn’t like them either and that I would be diligent about changing them. I asked if he was willing to be patient with me as I worked through it, and that I was confident those areas could be improved, and I gave myself 8 weeks to show progress and improvement, and then we would have another talk to discuss my progress in these areas at that time. He agreed to those terms. But here’s the thing: even though he said he was willing to be patient with me as I worked diligently to improve, he didn’t believe that I would change. He was skeptical. Not because I gave him a reason to be skeptical— I hadn’t given him a reason to not trust my word. But he was a silent skeptic and didn’t convey his skeptical feelings to me.
So instead of breaking up with me right then and there, he agreed to terms he had no intention of following through on and he began his search for someone else. He had the intentional purpose and action to betray me so that he could begin building something else with someone else so that when he became confident in the direction of their relationship, he could have the courage to break up with me.
He chose to create a double life. He chose to drive 3 hours to go see this girl for over 2.5 months and he rationalized his actions based on his FEELINGS. He ALLOWED his FEELINGS to not only prevent him from breaking up with me, but also to validate that his actions to cheat on me were a “good choice”.
He only apologized when he got caught, and before he admitted that he cheated he made sure to delete the evidence that it ever happened. Why? Because he knew I’d want to see the texts but even more so he deleted it because he KNEW THE TRUTH. The truth was: what he was doing was wrong. But he didn’t care because he FELT he was right by doing it. He convinced himself he was right to keep stringing me along based on his feelings— so he followed through on his betrayal anyway. He knew the truth the whole time he just chose not to allow the truth of his actions being wrong to cause him to make a different choice. That’s why he only felt guilty that he got CAUGHT, not that he was guilty that he made the decision at all.
Why do we give our fickle feelings so much power to destroy our lives? For a shred of forbidden pleasure that has been fetishized? And at what cost?
Our feelings will always be our feelings. But we get decide whether we’re going to keep our feelings in check through our actions, or allow our feelings to dictate our every move.
I guarantee if you do the latter, you’ll be living with a lot more regret.
andrea statler 