If a person has angry tendencies, then it is a struggle to handle that anger. Often people need help (ie. a therapist) to deal with these.
It is my experience that you can't tell someone to "turn your empathy into a superpower" the same way you can't tell them to "turn your anger into a superpower" - it just isn't that easy, takes time and effort.
Yes, it can be done, but success looks more like "I managed my anger so I can live a happier life" instead of "I channeled my anger and became a boxing champion". Think "I managed my empathy and set healthy boundaries". What would 'success' even look like in this context?
Of course, most people can muster the strength to choose to pass on the desert or the tryst. I think the parent is referring to the hard cases, where, only in retrospect, you have the clarity to see that you made the wrong choice and wish you'd done otherwise.
But of course you can't. And if you rewound the universe to the exact same starting conditions you still couldn't.
You only know what's 'hard' after you try to change them.
> But of course you can't. And if you rewound the universe to the exact same starting conditions you still couldn't.
That's too fatalistic. You can and do, but it's indeed hard.
I reject the idea that, to express an extreme case, we are powerless automatons of our worst instincts. We have free will and choices, just not always easy ones; we can change, but sometimes it takes a lot of work. People HN believe their startup can change the world and embrace all the hard work and mountains to climb; we have a much better chance of changing ourselves.
How do you define 'natural state'? For example, my natural state is to be attracted to food when I'm hungry, to certain humans who I find sexually appealing, etc., but I don't grab those things when they pass by; it's not hard. My natural state is to be angry or upset when my client says certain things, but I don't punch them or cry. My natural state is to be an illiterate, innumerate nomadic hunter-gatherer, like 200,000+ years of ancestors, yet here I am on my fat ass in front of a computer.
People process their emotions in many ways, healthy and unhealthy. It's our choice what we each do with them. Emotions are exceptionally valuable to judgement, intuition, and to your experience of the world. They are your experience of the world, for the most part.
> your comment came off as condescending
I'm not the commenter, but for another POV, that wasn't my impression.