Feelings - Sadness

There has been a few friends of mine that compare me to Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory due to  the strictly-logic view of the world we share.  Furthermore, people have said I'm very "robotic" in my thoughts.   This characteristic does not appear to be the best to have, as I've had good friends complain on my "lack of emotions".  So I thought I should spend time sharing my experience with emotions and hope to develop a series of posts to help both others and myself understand this very human experience of life.  It also just happens I'm feeling sad and hope this will help me carry on and positively accelerate me back to feeling happy.

Most recently I was told that I failed at increasing the happiness of another person.  All I could say was, "Okay."  Because I use this a lot and constantly seem to upset people further, I feel I need to explain why I think the response "okay" is justified.  Using "okay" represents a confirmation.  Human feelings can't be shared and even if I want to try to change that feeling the fact is the feeling occurred.  Thus, confirming my understanding is warranted.  But back to the scenario, I had the sad feeling.  I actually was surprised with the analogy I had when asked to describe how I felt.  I described my feeling as a Jenga tower missing a piece - less stable.  Moreover, I also felt locked up or speechless and ashamed.  The ashamed feeling stems from the instant realization of the impossibility of fixing and/or trying anything different.  I've had this whenever I've felt sad: the "bad" child  when my mom died, the "lazy" soccer player when I didn't make the team, and the "disorganized" friend when I forget people's birthdays.

When I come to a point where I know I can't change or fix the situation, that is when sadness reveals itself to me.  So sadness seems to come hand-in-hand with what I consider failure.  And because true failure only exists when dealing with people, because you can't fix something as complex as a human, I think I've only felt sadness when other people are involved.

I think I'm seeing why I developed my "lone wolf" personality...

Consistency, consistency, consistency...

I'm at an impasse in my teaching.  Two inner personalities are constantly butting heads over the issue of classroom management.  One personality is what I will call True Self.  The adversary, so to speak, is what I will Teaching Self.  Let me describe the "gladiators".

True Self is relaxed.  He believes that energy controls the atmosphere of every scenario.  Self control and mutual respect are thought to be present in every individual and by living by the Golden Rule no large scale problems will develop.  True Self places humans above other animals, basically on faith.

Teaching Self is eager.  He believes that energy also controls the atmosphere, but knows behavior is trained. Modeling respect is needed, but so are slight pushes and pulls to guide students into "proper" respect.  Teaching Self understands humans are animals.

Each week one of the gladiators seems to gain the upper hand.  Teaching Self was in complete control the first two weeks, but eventually the feeling of pity for the students took over.  Then, True Self suddenly started to win the fight, with faith that the students knew how to show respect as the weapon....

Faith.  Yet again the thorn in my side... The data clearly shows otherwise....