Emotionality is evidence of the underlying wrong of pride, the energy needed by an ego that is separate from God. Something wicked inside a fallen being wants him to be impatient, and it is always drawing him to the wrong people and to activities that lead inevitably to frustration. 

People seduce you by appealing to your lowly needs with appropriate offerings of excitement or comfort. Soon, all your reactions become compulsive, and your mind swirls with excuses.

You cannot stop being afraid and guilty because you cannot stop responding to demands, pressures, and suggestions. As you grow spiritually toward the source of evil and disaster, you are drawn to tragedy like a moth is drawn to a candle. 

Using the energy of resentment, your ego struggles to save itself, but the sheer vanity of such a struggle, implemented as it is with ideas, feelings, and reliance on other people, pulls you in deeper and causes you still more guilt.

It is one thing to become involved with wrong, but to try to save yourself with false virtue and innocence, and not face up to having made the mistake, creates an even greater wrong. 

As a creature of relativity, separated from the ground of your true being, you can no longer be subject to the inner world of conscience, because you have become subject to what has yanked you away from its gravitational pull. 

When you reach toward glorious goals, you leave behind your humanity. Then, you tend to reject the truth concerning what has happened to you. You complicate matters still further with your escapes, distractions, and comforts that look like solutions.

Guilt and resentment compel you to rebel against the true knowledge, and you sin again and again by wrestling with the problem instead of seeking to know the cause. 

Next to the lack of faith, ego-emotional materialism presents your biggest hazard on the way back to reality. The things you use for distraction and a feeling of security become an environmental refuge.

Whenever you stand to lose material things that you “had to have” to gratify your ego, or even worse, when you can’t even acquire them, “king” ego feels hopeless, terrified, shaken with insecurity.

"As long as you put first things first... you will not respond at all to pressure, but you will develop from your inner wisdom. "

If the security you seek happens to take the form of a person, or lover, you might feel the special kind of resentment called jealousy; and because jealousy aggravates libido, you feel diminished beyond endurance. Through resentment, you become less of a person, and you feel self-conscious, inferior, and guilty. 

There is nothing wrong with working to acquire material objects—some of them, after all, are necessary for survival—but they should never be used primarily to feed your hungry ego. Or to get in the way of your seeking the purpose for which you were created, which is certainly more important than looking important.

As long as you put first things first, you will know naturally what is important for you to have, and you will meet each new situation with a proper response. That is, you will not respond at all to pressure, but you will develop from your inner wisdom. 

When you “die” to the call of sin, you lose all fear and anxiety. You also lose the desire for drugs, drink, cigarettes, or any other kind of comfort or escape. Always remember that “cures” and escapes are really different forms of temptation, so that whatever tempts you to become wrong and comforts you in that wrong is responsible for your fall. 

If you are fully committed to what is right, you will be responsible and loyal in your relationships with others. You will have the staying power to see things through. 

The power to stand firm and unresponsive to pressure must always be preceded by your commitment to what is right in your heart. It is that commitment that enables you to grow, in spite of all the pressures and temptations of the world around you.

If you find yourself becoming more “your own person,” less responsive to stress of all kinds, you will actually see the extent of your commitment to what is right in your heart. 

Every foolish person has a date with tragedy. Every wrong response sets him up to respond even more emotionally and violently the next time. Then, one day, when he needs wisdom and composure to save the day, he will know only fear and rage.