*Continuing from the previous post
So, now that we’ve seen that a single experience may be extremely variable rather than binary (fun/not-fun), we’ll expand on this.
I’ve made this curve based on what could happen for me when I do something social.
You can see that I get stressed leading up to the event – maybe I can’t figure out what to wear, and then I’m a little late, and the I have traffic, and then I have to find the person, etc. This leads me to start on the negative side of the experience axis.
Once I’ve said hello, then there will be positives and negatives based on a whole host of factors. Then, I usually get tired and then say goodbye. After I’ve driven home, I may reflect on the experience positively or be glad it is over and be happy at home…then get bored again, and so on.
Great. Now what?
The next step is to look at the levels of experiences above and below the horizontal axis. The first way to look at this is to think of the horizontal bands as positive experiences and negative experiences, with the higher indicating more positive and the lower more negative (I’ll get into why this is a bit misleading in later posts, however, it suffices for now).
For example, if laughter indicated a positive experience, then a 2 would be chuckling and a 3 would be uncontrollable laughter. On the negative side, 2 might indicate boredom or frustration and a 3 could be anger. And, of course, the 0 (zero) axis would be contentment or neutral.
Why does this matter?
It’s easy for me to assume that events should be ALL GOOD and that I am messing something up or something is wrong with the event or other people if I am not ALWAYS HAPPY. Making this graph helps me to accept that I will most likely feel a range of emotions during simple experiences. And that’s ok.
To be continued…!
The Friend Manual: How to make friends when you're bad at it 