Feelings make unreliable advisers at the moment of choosing, and Innocent’s reason is structural. Emotions are reactions, shifting with whatever just happened, while “decisions are inceptive and they are what our emotions react to.” The choice comes first. Let the reaction lead and the order is backwards.

The half we usually miss is that pleasant feelings distort as reliably as painful ones. An insult or a setback can knock you off course; praise and a run of happy moments can blind you just as thoroughly, and they never feel like a risk while they last.

Quiet both and reason gets a hearing. He is not asking anyone to become cold — emotions still count, they just count for less when a decision is being made. What follows is a steadier kind of power over your own actions, and people who start bringing you their problems, because “a grounded person is a great problem solver.”