Hate; anxiety; addiction - how emotions run our lives.

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/)

I've been working on a book about how to stop telemarketers' internet scams and ran across both ends of the emotional spectrum, which gives us pause to study what we do every day.

At one end was the Cialdini 6 (or 7) emotional triggers we all have to some degree and that telemarketers (and most all salespeople) use to a greater or lesser degree to get us to buy.

At the other end is the work we can get into in "exacting Justice" or "getting even." Of course, both sets of emotions are present in a scam. (Plus the plain old-fashioned greed of the Internet scammers.)

I know this last one well - as I was born a Scorpio and you either run hot or cold, depending on how you've re-trained yourself - or not. Scorpio's can be the most dedicated staff you have once you gain their loyalty - but the term "hell hath no fury" aptly describes their darker side.

And so I was a bit surprised when my intuition told me to pursue a refund after I found I had been suckered into an Internet scam. But testing it, that inner voice still said to "go for it". So I went about turning my research tools loose in this area - but still standing back to watch what I was doing.

A short side bar: the scammers I'm dealing with take advantage of people who are the early boomers, in their 40's to 60's and don't know a great deal about the Internet. These scammers sell them an overpriced training package which may teach them quite a bit about setting up an Internet site, but it won't make their money back. The scammers' Achilles' heel is that they don't really apply what they teach. And so are easily blindsided by people who can link them to a scam by regular old search engine optimization. (So people who learn to look someone up on the Internet will find their scams right off.) See, they get their leads from people clicking on some freebie gimmick - and then telemarket those leads into sales. Scammers don't actively cultivate their own niche of Internet training, or whatever they think they are supposed to be looking like they're doing. To them, the Internet is one big scam - with millions of suckers born every minute.

Now, what we are talking about today is how emotions run our lives. And how this is actually a form of addiction (or at least the metaphor fits.)

I'm straining a bit here to find where I've covered this before. I've earlier said that addiction was a matter of choices. And also that a person could reprogram him self by choosing the interests which surrounds him - in marketing terms: their niche. And there's an older post which covers exactly how we are re-programming ourselves constantly - the trick is to take this off automatic.

But there's no reason to go into how to do that here, just pick up a copy of Nightingale's Strangest Secret and follow his 30-day program, if you're needing structure about how to do it - or get my "Go Thunk Yourself S'More" (or it's blog) and follow those instructions.

The main point here is that whatever we do, we need to be studying our own actions as well as the emotional motivations we use, and also our emotional responses. Both of these terms, "emotional" and "actions" are entirely self-caused - if even by neglect.

And when we take responsibility for these actions and emotions - and start planning our works and then working those plans toward our own innate purpose - then life becomes extremely livable and even joyous. But more than likely, we reach some inimitable and indomitable internal peace with ourselves - something Nightingale describes as a "calm, cheerful expectancy" about life and living. I believe some might refer to this as "Zen."

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What to do about those scammers? Well, I'm not purposed to be some sort of activist, so I'll finish up the book and its marketing, get my refund, and move onto a number of projects which cry out for my attention. Is there a need to get that scene sorted out? Sure - there has to be some discipline in life for all the guys who "cheat" the rules which the rest of us live by. Mostly because if we don't put some restraint on them, they'll wind up in a very sorry and expensive state which the rest of us will physically and morally pay for. (Both prison and state-financed health-care are both extremely expensive with little or no return to the taxpayers who foot the bill. Plus we tend to feel bad about the people in those conditions.)

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What do you think?

Have you got some addictive emotional situations of your own? Comment or contact me.