I think the exhortations from e.g. the Ancient Greeks, the Stoics re: “don’t let your emotions control you” are totally valid, because they’ll be talking about what are essentially emotional spirals, when an emotion has grown and is now this big uncontrollable mess, like when e.g. you’ve brooded on a resentment which has grown wilder the more you’ve brooded
So yes, seriously, don’t choose your actions based on these emotion spirals - the size of the spiral is way bigger than the actual trigger
This is exactly First Darts vs Second Darts btw. First darts are small, real, valid, second darts are our reactions to the first darts, and they’re overblown. “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”
Because huge emotion spirals have gotten us into trouble, we decide that emotions in general can’t be trusted
But actually, the “first dart” emotions are useful signal (otherwise why would we have them at all?)
(And, if you take someone who doesn’t have access to this signal, they become incredibly irrational and incapable of making good decisions → see the book )