HowTo:Control Your Emotions

Finally, your dream date is going to the cinema with you! You skip around your stingy apartment, whooping with joy. You calm down several days later, only to realise that you're meant to be meeting your date in 5 minutes! OMG!! You stumble around, clutching your head with worry, looking for your favourite shoes. They're nowhere to be found! You throw a massive temper tantrum before breaking down crying. You cry and cry until you resemble a prune. Your apartment is flooded with your tears. Your date promptly commits suicide after being turned up. You can't go on like this any longer, it just isn't a practical way to live. You're a pathetic, emotional wreck!

Determined to change, you drag yourself to your computer, and with the little strength you have left, begin to read this article on how to control your emotions.

Introduction

That's it: conquer and control Iraq. I mean uh... your emotions.

Calm down. CALM DOWN! Showing emotion can often be embarrassing, unnecessary, and even harmful in some cases. Come on, it's not really that shocking. But never fear! Suppress that sigh of relief immediately! With help, you can control your emotions. Your days of crying over spilled milk are over. Stop whooping! Man, you do need some work.

Gaining Control

There are three things you need to keep in mind when it comes to controlling your emotions: looking at the big picture, a simple process of association, and finally some brief self-evaluation. Completing these steps can take anything from several minutes to several months, or perhaps years if you are particularly weak.

Step 1 - The Big Picture

You will need:

• A big picture, preferably of someone or something in a far worse situation than you. It cannot be stressed enough that the picture must be LARGE. For example:
  • A starving child in Africa
  • Holocaust victims
  • That little boy down the street

Got your big picture? Good. Remember, it should occupy AT LEAST an entire wall.

Step 2 - Association

You will need:

• A friend
• A chair
• Sturdy straps
• One of those wonderful thingys that holds your eyes open

This could be you!

Now, get your friend to strap you to a chair. They should then use the wonderful eye-holder thing to both hold your eyes open and your head still. Perfectly still. Now, stare at the picture. You may feel revulsion, or panicked. You may even have the urge to cry, scream in fear, or curl up into the fetal position sobbing for the blighted remains of your sanity.

This is where your friends truly come into their own. Whenever you appear to be showing emotion, they should pull out a baseball bat and give you a good old seeing to. After a while, you should begin to calm down.

Step 3 - Evaluation

Well, to be honest this isn't really a step. But at this point, you should look at something that would normally inspire emotion. This could be a dead kitten, a Uwe Boll movie or your own internal organs, bleeding on the floor. If you feel any emotion whatsoever, repeat steps one and two immediately. If not...

Congratulations!

You've made it! You now feel no emotion whatsoever. That 'congratulations' should have rolled right off you, not affecting your blank stare in the slightest. Once your legs heal, you can become an honest and hard-working citizen. Visit your local branch of the Department of Re-education to collect your regulation jumpsuit and number.

See also

• HowTo:Calm down
• HowTo:Take It Easy, Man