Emotional people are unpredictable, and unpredictability is a turn-off for most rational and stable people (who I like to surround myself with).
Depending on your goals in life, being "the rock" typically gets you better long-term social results.
Seriously, there's nothing wrong with feeling emotion. Emotion and logic are NOT, as people in our field so love to proclaim, mutually exclusive.
Your emotions frequently cue you in to valuable information in a situation. Emotional people are actually very predictable -- they are showing you their feelings and in a way communicating their needs.
How can you seriously think that repressing your emotions make you a stable person? This literally goes against all of the literature on the subject.
I never said not to feel emotion. Stoicism simply doesn't act on it without first checking other valid logical responses. Understand what you're dealing with here.
Extremely emotional people are only predictable in that they are going to behave unpredictably and irrationally.
What I find hilarious is that I explain what's gotten me superior results in life and everyone argues with it rather than try to understand why.
In my opinion guys in general are way too emotional in how they behave, saying stuff like 'super awesome', 'this times 1000' and so on. It makes me feel really uncomfortable. But that does not imply that i'm stone cold. I'm far from it. When I was recovering from a surgical procedure, boy was i emotional. For months. But that was privately. I just avoided public spaces, I'm much too reserved and in that sense you are right MbcroBerto: I felt really unpredictable, even to myself, let alone to others.
People are different. Some people like to follow the same routine and be very stoic and are content with that. Others would rather explore and experience variety and new things and ride the peaks & troughs. Both have advantages & disadvantages.
Steve Jobs was known for crying often, so being emotional and successful can certainly go together.
(Being stubborn and illogical = emotional in this sense)
As I said elsewhere, I'm not dead inside, I still see just as much beauty out in the woods as you do. I just don't lose my mind anymore in most situations.
It's also really fucking exhausting.
Try getting into a "defcon-4" style argument yet don't raise your voice, don't change your tone or tempo, and don't worry about the outcome as much -- just maintain control of your emotions. It's amazing what happens and how the other party responds.
The exhausting part is being the rock when there's a crisis. When your spouse is freaking out about running out of money for rent. When rent is being raised and you have to figure out how to raise it less. When kids get injured and need the hospital.
Or when your team is freaking out because everything's going to shit and production is down and you're running out of time on features you promised to Big Users/Clients TM.
When everyone around you is panicking and freaking the fuck out, but somebody has to fix the situation. That's when being the rock matters.
Who even gives a shit about arguments? Arguing is for fun.
And then, yes -- when it does matter, you know what already gets you best results.
As a kid, excessive emotions made me feel toxic because there is no solution to emotional issues. I learned how to block those emotions and voila, I'm now a great cog in the economy. I can get stuff done without emotions affecting me. I am pretty good at conflict resolution (not domination).
I have a very nice rational life but a few relationships did make me realize that my go to solution for any problem is blocking emotions. Not really healthy IMO.
The people I know who cry the most happen to be the most self absorbed people that I know. They do not have more empathy. The most caring and emotionally generous people I know do not cry very much.
The linked page mentions it, and theres more data later in the book.
I don't know why people place so much emphasis on empathy, as if it's some magical ingredient that other animals lack, or that it's some integral component to society.
Other animals have empathy too, and empathy has little to do with moral reasoning. Empathy doesn't make humans special, intelligence and the physical composition/dexterity to make full use of our intelligence is what makes us special.
Yes, absolutely. And the glorification of empathy leads to immoral behavior. Empathy without skepticism, intelligence, or reason leads to being manipulated by immoral people into immoral acts.
If, by "social results", you mean "well-connected" or "successful", then I agree.