I continue the column based on the game “Master of Communication”. Another of the ideas that came to life in the Game was the idea of ​​self-development. Sound familiar? There are many stories on this topic, I will tell you one: Once upon a time there was a good middle-aged girl. Since childhood, fate has prepared one fate for her - to be good. So, with age, the girl had no choice but to become better and better. So she grew above herself, grew, grew... And suddenly, bam, she rebelled: “I’m tired! I’m tired! How long can I... pretend to be Pinocchio?! When will I become someone I can just live with..?” But she quickly took herself into disciplined hands (and in them - a plane!) and continued her self-activity in making herself perfect. Fortunately, the girl learned well from childhood: “If you suffer for a long time, something will work out.” That's why I grew up patient. And now I was honestly suffering. For a long time. Diligently. Finally, the painstakingly-won moment of triumph came for her, when, with full right, she was able to declare to the world: “Admire what I have become! She is not at all angry, not confrontational, comfortable and easy to use. I'm in a good mood. And she turns her face to the needs of all those in need in the world! It's finished! Here I am: positive, calm, spiritually improved!” But, you know, for some reason, after this act of self-fulfillment, the last thing she now wants to do is live. It is at that moment when you can begin to be proud of yourself with all your might, but it’s as if you have no strength left for it. She suddenly felt that along with the peace of mind, her soul also seemed to PEACE... Remember the words: “Whether you will or not, it’s all the same”? The heroine of the popular Soviet fairy tale “Marya the Mistress” confidentially admitted this to us. And then our good girl began to understand the essence of the saying: “I live correctly, but in vain.” “In vain” does not mean that it is useless. No. It was her body that, out of acquired habit, now produced the benefits regularly, like clockwork. And about what is missing in such a life – life! Well, then why should she continue to do this... I mean live...? And now I’m thinking: “Why did this crazy monocle happen to her?” Let's first imagine the curve of our emotions (feelings, states) in the form of a graph (see Fig. 1). Fig. 1 Range of emotions. At the top of the graph we placed positive states: euphoria, love, joy, enthusiasm, delight, happiness, inspiration, etc. Somewhere closer to the middle: hope, tenderness, faith, surprise... Everything, these are pleasant, and also socially approved feelings. And we strive to experience them. We placed doubt, anxiety, irritation a little lower... And to the very bottom of the graph we pushed negative states: guilt, shame, contempt, anger, anger, hatred, fear... Now let's take it as an axiom that any system strives to restore balance, and therefore people , after bright emotional outbursts, invariably return to a certain equilibrium state. In this position, a person is emotionally stable, his internal state is balanced. And he leaves his newfound refuge only under the influence of significant internal and/or external stimuli. At the same time, he flies into the positive or negative, depending on the type of stimulus and his usual response to its influence. “But why do we need negativity?!” - the positivists will ask. "What do you want instead?" - they will ask their next question. And the more life-affirmingly we respond to it, the more quickly we will look away from what can plunge us into difficult feelings. For example: we will only look where “the glass is half full”; limit “toxic” communication; Let’s strengthen our positivist attitude and in every possible way become “growing spiritually”... Thus, we will exclude from our lives living the lower (“negative”) part of the graph, trying to stay in the upper good energies. However, our world is not unipolar. And night follows day, and after winter invariably comes summer. So a person experiences fluctuations in multidirectional states and emotions... He again finds a certain balance in this - a new center of balance, according to.