For some reason, humans conflate what feels good or bad with what is actually good or bad. We do this in spite of having the ability to reason, which empowers us to identify and choose what is best longterm even if it doesn’t feel best right now. Only by seeking for what is actually good—independent of how it feels right now—can you optimize your long-term feelings.
Reason is a powerful tool that allows us to transcend the limits of unthinking emotions to evaluate the actual costs and benefits of available options and calculate what is best. When we rationally judge something by its merits, we make a moral judgment of its value through comparing its cost and benefit as dictated by our beliefs. We do none of that when we merely judge something by whether it makes us feel good or bad.
The folly of allowing our emotions to guide us instead of using reason is like navigating to a desired outcome by walking in whatever direction takes the least effort compared to using a map and compass. Following the path of greatest-present-feeling is guaranteed to lead you to a place of lesser joy than what you would have reached through the exercise of reason.
What we colloquially call “good feelings” are, more often than not, not good at all, and what we call “bad feelings” can very often be good. Not only is the pleasure of the moment distinct from the actual goodness of the moment, it tends to be the opposite.
Whether a feeling is good is not determined by how pleasurable it is. Whether a feeling is good is determined by whether it yields perceived improvement or not. Perceived improvement will, in turn, yield joy, which is the most pleasurable feeling there is.
Never underestimate the effect of the meaning you perceive in the experiences of life. Enduring joy is derived from meaning, and the meaning we find or don’t find in life’s experience will determine how much joy we experience and hold onto in life. Internal meaning applied to external circumstances can provide enduring joy in spite of fluctuating external circumstances, including those that lie outside of our control. Internal perspective can transcend external circumstance and can perceive value beyond any amount of suffering possible here.
What makes an experience good is not the pleasure of the moment, but the meaning of the moment. When we experience what we perceive as valuable, we consider it good even if it is painful, and when we experience what we perceive as not valuable, we feel bad, even if it is pleasurable. While a person touching a hot stove would experience a bad feeling, the same sensation felt by a firefighter in rescuing a trapped person would elicit great value; a person suffering from lifethreatening pain might claim this is a pure negative sensation, but a mother giving birth interprets her pain differently. Meaning makes all the difference.
Those actuated by emotions think they are reacting to things outside of their control, as if the effects of their emotions were as inescapable as gravity is to a person who falls off a building. The truth is, you don’t have to feel bad even if bad things happen to you any more than you have to feel good when good things happen to you. You control how you feel by how you react to what happens to you, and you do this by how you interpret reality. Emotional reactions are just as information-based as the most deliberate rational choice. The only difference is whether the interpretation is intentional or passive.