The Emotion Work and Feeling Rules article provoked
a lot of reflection of my emotional life and habits. I constantly find
myself questioning what I feel and shaping the emotions I convey
to societal appropriateness.
One example I thought of was when my Great Aunt died when I
was a freshman in high school. She lived in Boston, so I did not
see her too often; we visited each other enough, though, to
the point where we had a pretty good relationship.
On the day she died, I was obviously sad, but I kept feeling like I was
sad only because I should have been sad. After a lot of self-analyzing, I
decided I would probably just express my grief at her funeral, and
that it simply had not hit me yet. Well, her funeral came
and it was the same kind of feeling. I felt, and still feel,
heartless for not being able to convey my sadness
the way everyone else did. Ever since then, whenever
something sad happens, I'm always somewhat scared I won't
seem as sad as everyone else and people will assume I don't care.
Like when I said bye to my friends before we all left for college,
I cried with three of my really good friends. But when a large
group of my friends were hanging out our last night, I was
the only girl who wasn't crying. I don't know what it is.
As apparently unemotional as I am, "Graduation"
by Vitamin C gets me every time.
The other reading, about the animal shelter, was really upsetting.
It wasn't so bad because I have an extreme opinion one way or the other, though.
It was bad for me because I guess I can equally see both sides of the fence.
Killing an animal would be hard enough, and then to have to manage
that emotion and change your opinions into more of an "economic"
sense...I would not do well with that. Having people constantly asking
you, and judging you, about your job would be tiring too. I found it interesting
they included that often times workers cope
with the situation through humor. I do it too, but it's so
weird how laughing and making light of bad situations makes them
more acceptable.
C3PO was the first thing I thought of when I thought of comic relief.
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