i-TFTD #331: On Vague Moods

#331-1. When in a sour mood, stop everything and ask if you are in need of food, sleep, a potty break, fresh air, or exercise.
-Justin Wehr

#331-2. The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else—we are the busiest people in the world.
-Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

#331-3. Weather is a state of mind. How gray one feels inside has little to do with clouds or what the thermometer reads. One could find cheerful people in an icy place like Alaska or gloomy people on a sunny beach in Hawaii.
-Anu Garg, chief word smith of A.Word.A.Day

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Mood is hard to define but we all know what it is. Moods are non-specific emotional states that linger but are less long-lasting than personality traits. I used to believe that so-called moody people are inconsiderate folk who use the word to justify their self-centered behavior. Psychology professor Robert Thayer is a mood researcher who has written useful books and articles on how food and thoughts affect our mood. One useful insight I gathered is to view mood as a thermometer. It is an indicator. We can learn to become aware of our mood and examine the causes of it so as to take useful action. Proponents of emotional intelligence advise us to identify how a particular feeling, especially a negative one, manifests as a physical sensation. Many people experience a low-intensity headach! e-like throb when they are frustrated or silently angry about something. For me, it seems to make me feel queasy in the stomach. The value of noticing such a symptom is that it often precedes the identification of the feeling by our conscious mind. Once we make a correlation we can train ourselves to become aware quickly.

When prioritization is not done properly we may end up spending time on the less important matters, which creates the feeling of being out of control. Then we become less effective.