Have you ever wondered who’s pulling your strings?

* * *

The other day, I was working my way through some cyber security training that I have to complete for my job. One of the things that the video said has been stuck in my brain for days, trying to work its way out.

The video said, in several different places, that many of the types of scams that people fall prey to on the internet are deceptions that rely on emotional responses. The video talked about being wary when an email or a text message –or any other kind of message for that matter– makes you feel excited or scared, because those kinds of messages trick us into taking action without thinking about it.

Can you believe this?!?! They are using our emotions against us, to trick us?!?!

Being emotional and then making decisions without fully considering them is –apparently– one of the defining characteristics of people who end up falling for cyber security scams of various different kinds. And I know that the school district’s insurance agency is interested in the employees of the school district not being the kind of people who make rash, hasty decisions based on the emotions that we are made to feel by the perpetrators who send us these messages.

But, then I got to thinking…

* * *

During the past couple of family vacations that my family has taken together, I’ve been fond of saying to my fellow family members –and they’ve turned it back on me, as well– “find your chi”. It’s become a bit of a joke, but my intended message behind the quip has been to remind all of us that we can center ourselves consciously and intentionally, choosing to disengage with emotional escalation when it happens.

If you’ve ever been on a family vacation before, you know what I’m talking about when I mention emotional escalation. Expectations, frustrations, delays, and last-minute plan changes – they all have a way of getting us riled up. A certain member of our family, who will remain nameless in their defense, had an emotional melt-down just like this in the Epcot Center at Disney. Others of us have had our outbursts at other places, at other times.

But when Dad says, “Find your chi”, it either 1) makes us laugh at things, or 2) it reminds us all to consciously pull-out of the emotional response cycle.

More on that in a minute.

The problem with the emotional response cycle is that we put our intellect on hold as we go off the deep-end with our emotions. If you’ve never noticed it before, take a moment –while you’re reading this– to think about the last time that you had an emotional outburst. Was it something that you gave a lot of consideration to? Was it something that you were thinking hard about while you were doing it? Did the outburst seem like an intelligent thing to you, when you looked back at it –after it had happened– with the power of your intellect?

Of course, the answers to these questions is ‘no’.

* * *

Have you ever wondered whether or not we’re all being manipulated? I’m becoming more and more convinced of that, with each passing day.

Of course, the problem is that we are allowing it to happen.

Yesterday was the mid-term election, and my wife won the seat that she was working to gain on our local school board. I am very proud of her, and the kind of campaign that she ran, and I am especially proud of the kind of woman that she is and the great school board member that I know that she’s going to be.

During the whole process, though, I got emotional several times.

When the woman on Facebook called my wife a liar and attacked her character, you can only imagine how emotional I got. I was mere inches away from launching the warbirds, believe you me.

When we discovered the nature of some of the other candidates that my wife was running against, I got emotional. I’m still emotional, just thinking about it, even after the fact. Even as I’m typing this.

When my wife was hounded by people who thought it appropriate to ask her all manner of irrelevant questions, it was hard for all of us not to become emotional.

In other words, we ‘lost our chi’.

The problem is this: it would seem that we now live in a world where people are going to attempt to rile us up, on purpose, for their own ends. If an email scammer wants me to click on a link and they know they can do it by getting me excited or angry or scared, that’s the world that we live in now. If the news media outlet that you watch is prepared to scare you or excite you or anger you by showing you what they choose to show you, that’s the world that we live in now. If people on social media are posting to yank your chain, to get you to bite on the hook that they’ll sink into your jaw once you’ve become engaged in their petty bickering, that’s the world that we live in now.

But, you still have a choice.

Step one is always to find your chi. As a Christian, I’m not encouraging you to go on a Zen Buddhist pilgrimage to locate your spiritual center. Much of that stuff ends up just being hogwash. But, I do believe in an emotional and spiritual center. You should get used to the practice of locating yours.

Disengage from the emotional escalation, so you can take a step back and rationally think about what’s happening right in front of you. I find, myself, that the easiest way to do this is to breathe.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. As you do, disconnect from the emotions you were feeling. Get off of the roller coaster.

The next step is, then, to opt out.

The puppet masters are pulling our strings and they’re doing it by emotionally manipulating us. The next time something, or someone, gets you charged up, find your chi and then ask yourself…

Am I being manipulated?

Chances are, the answer’s ‘yes’.

So, stop allowing it.

I confess that I, far too often, give away the control that I have over myself and my reactions by ceding that control as I suspend my intellect and decide instead to get emotional.

Maybe you do, too?

It’s time for us to cut these puppet strings, I think.