Stay calm

This seems to be something I have to learn many times:
Unpleasant emotional states (for example depression or anxiety) comes on the heels of strong excitement, either negative or positive. Strong emotions, tension.
If I could learn better to stay calm, I could avoid by far most of it.

It's tough to learn, because I'm excitable, and so far as I can see, the Ego *loves* excitement, as far as it's concerned it is what life is all about.

But I have learned I can do a great deal of keeping calm and calming down on purpose, I just need to become better at staying *aware* of it.

Update below: my friend Laurie expands this into the metaphysical realm, saving me from having posted off-topic. :-)

"That excitement feels like LIFE, it's hard to see it again and again as a dangling carrot, as in fact, a scam. Because it never delivers, it never ends up in LIFE, only loss and further desire.

Also, the mind conjures up scenes of the opposite happening to us if we stop feeding that excitement: dull, dead, personality-less, lifeless.

But desiring any object through the senses, for me without fail has led to disappointment. I'm really tired of it."

(Back to me.) She's right. What's basically wrong with excitement is that it's excitement about a thing in the world. Which isn't there. It's absolutely nothing. How can that not disappoint?

We are so slow that we never learn until our last lifetime. ("It's always in the last place you look.")
"Now I'm a millionaire, but I'm not happy. But I'll bet if I had a hundred million, I'd be happy."