I see that being happy and feeling good has become an obsession in people. I think that American popular psychology and the “personal development” industry that emerged in this direction have a great contribution to this. Everyone accepts the value of feeling good and having good feelings. However, life is a river and in this river there are good experiences such as getting a diploma, falling in love, getting a good job, having a child, getting promoted; as well as bad experiences such as failing, being abandoned, being unemployed, being betrayed, losing a loved one, getting sick. No one can say, “Let the good things come to me, let the bad things go wherever they may.” Just as every living being is destined to “taste death,” failures and bad experiences are also a part of life.
Negative emotions such as anger and envy are almost considered sins; it is not welcome to bring feelings such as jealousy and disappointment into daily conversations; feelings such as sadness and shame are considered “unhealthy,” “negative,” and even “bad and evil” emotions. People get angry with themselves because they experience these feelings, and they try to suppress them, distance themselves from themselves, and get rid of these feelings through medication and therapy.
Emotions have evolved throughout human history and trigger changes at different levels behind our threshold of consciousness to help us reach our goals. Emotions allow us to notice threats and opportunities and to organize our behaviors in a way that will benefit us. Especially negative emotions are the guardians of a person’s life, property, and reputation. When evaluated from an evolutionary perspective, if it were not for the negative emotions that we do not like to experience and avoid today, it would not be possible to sustain life.
Fear and Anxiety
In Turkish culture,