Page Chen, G12 陈沛铨

I am what many would call an exemplary student — at the very least, one with perfect attendance. My friends often praise my punctuality, noting that I am always the first to arrive. To others, this seems like an admirable trait. To me, however, the story is more complicated.

Once, I arranged to meet friends at five o’clock. I arrived first — but I was five minutes late. The moment I realized it, guilt flooded my heart, as though I had committed some grave wrongdoing. The intensity of that feeling was no exaggeration. I immediately began apologizing. My friends noticed the anomaly and pointed it out.

That was when I began to trace the origin of my emotion.

My grandparents were extremely strict about punctuality. I was taught to regard being on time as a fundamental measure of character and future success. “If you are late, others will be disappointed. If you disappoint others, you become a failure.” Although I now recognize this as a logical fallacy, my mind had already internalized the association: lateness equals guilt.

My therapist, Cantor, once told me, “What you feel can be different from what you think. It is not wrong to feel the way you do, and your thoughts may disagree with how you feel.” In other words, cognition and emotion can diverge greatly.

Emotion exists to help us survive. It allows us to detect potential risks, anticipate social consequences, and understand others’ needs so that we may belong within a group. The need for social acceptance is unique to humans among all species. As Dr. Julie Smith explains, “Our emotions are our brain’s best guess at what is happening in our surroundings, but a best guess can sometimes be wrong.”

The critical question, then, is not whether our emotions are justified in absolute terms. Rather, it is whether we can recognize them, examine them, and respond to them wisely. Emotions may arise automatically from past learning, but understanding them gives us the freedom to choose how we act.