In one of my idle moments, when I was pondering the connection between these activities and emotional states, I realized that indeed there is a connection, and rather direct, with the primary survival instincts of human beings that developed early in our evolution. In fact, the Mother Nature has built the emotional responses into our bodies which directly reflect the importance and roles of these dimensions in our lives. Or at least I like to think of it that way :-)
Dimension of Distraction: Not Urgent and Not Important
Those activities that are not urgent and not important are often a waste of time, or an escape from reality. This is when an early man was lying near his cave after a good hunt and an abundant dinner, having fulfilled all his needs, and now having time to gaze around, wonder about the insects in the grass, the birds in the trees, biting off his overgrown toe nails, painting the cave walls, and otherwise having a good and totally unproductive time.
A good modern example from this dimension is playing a silly computer game, or prettying up your desk "preparing" for work.
Depending on the activity, it may yield immediate little pleasures, or fulfill the idle curiosity (I wonder what my co-workers had for lunch today?). Other times it may result in indifference or boredom. Think of it as a time when you have done your job, filled your stomach, took care of all the other important affairs, and have time to lie down on a couch, scratch your belly, and wonder what part of a woman's body resembles the crack on the ceiling.
Despite the negative description, this dimension can be quite useful, for instance, for jump-starting your creative thinking processes which in a long run may produce very interesting and unexpected results.
Dimension of Dillusion: Urgent but Not Important
Ever had an annoying phone ringing in a middle of a very important meeting? Did you pick it up? What if you simply let the caller leave a message and call back later, at a more convenient time for you? How did you feel about it?
This is the dimension which causes most of irritation. Coming back to our cave man, he may be annoyed by a mosquito buzzing right around his left ear, or little kids pulling out his favorite bear skin again from the corner.
Dimension of Demand: Urgent and Important
In the modern society this dimension creates most stress. Project deadlines at work which you put off till the last minute and emergencies obviously fall into this category.
In the early days, this dimension was coming up mostly in life-threatening situations: a saber-tooth tiger attacks you, or the rock gives away as you're climbing it, or a stranger from another tribe is going after you. Or you are terribly hungry, and you know that it is time to get food, or it might be too late.
Naturally, this dimension creates lots of fear, agitation and anger -- familiar simptoms of stress, even in today's life.
Dimension of Fulfillment: Not Urgent, but Important (The Zone)
This dimension is the most rewarding and pleasurable of all. It is when you are doing something because you know it is important, and you are doing it well before the deadline, without any time pressure. Or, perhaps, you are doing something which you always wanted to do as a hobby, like learning to draw, but never found time to do it before.
What activities may a cave man do that belong to this category? The obvious ones are having sex and eating food before getting too hungry.
OK, the food part is clear. But why sex? Because reproduction is absolutely important for survival of the species, but it is not that urgent -- one can always put it off for another day. Therefore, our body developed a wonderful sensory gratification mechanism called orgasm to encourage reproductive activities. Eating food has a similar, albeit slightly lower degree of sensory gratification. Again, from the completely intellectual point of view, eating food when one just starts to feel hungry is not that urgent -- it can be done a bit later without any harm, but it is extremely important to have enough energy for survival.
When I think about these built-in mechanisms, I find them rather clever in directing us by emotions to the most important, though not necessarily urgent activities for survival.
