"A kind word warms like spring through three winters; a harsh word wounds like frost in the sixth month."
In January 2026, a prepared-dish dispute that began in September 2025 escalated again. The war of words between Luo Yonghao and Jia Guolong, founder of Xibei, ended with both their Weibo accounts muted in sync. After the mute, both kept speaking in WeChat Moments: Luo Yonghao confirmed a 15-day mute, "kindly interpreting it as protection for me," and said he would not respond further; Jia Guolong denounced that "Xibei's cliff-edge losses came as Luo Yonghao's livestream sales quintupled," bluntly saying this dispute piled misery onto an Xibei already full of holes. This industry discussion, which should have focused on "consumers' right to know" and "the definition of dining standardization," went completely off track amid four months of emotional standoff, degenerating into a public-resource-wasting opinion brawl.
Looking past the phenomenon to the essence: the nature of this brawl is an "emotion war"! Luo Yonghao's emotionally charged public expression became the emotional trigger for Jia Guolong, who chose to confront it head-on, until things became unmanageable. I have no intention of judging right and wrong; I only want to say that a leader's basic literacy is emotional stability. We also feel this in daily life: once emotion flares up, small problems always escalate into big trouble—cut off in traffic and unable to resist an argument or even a fight; criticized at work and reacting emotionally or even quitting; a small family oversight triggering the cold shoulder or even a broken home... What truly determines the course of life is never what happens to us, but whether we can keep a clear head on emotion between stimulus and response.
01 Emotional Stability: A Basic Trait of Maturity
True emotional stability is not "never getting angry" but "seeing the emotion, accepting it, then responding rationally." It is essentially different from "swallowing anger": the former is active mastery, the latter passive repression—repressed emotion will eventually erupt more violently, while actively mastered emotion can become a force that helps life.
Emotional stability is never "swallowing anger" but the clarity of "a kind word warms like spring through three winters; a harsh word wounds like frost in the sixth month"; only by holding the bottom line of emotion can you hold the warmth of relationships and the pattern of life. As Xunzi's "On Honor and Disgrace" says, "Kind words to others are warmer than cloth; words that wound are deeper than spear and halberd"—this ancient wisdom is confirmed by modern science: a 2025 Neuroscience News study shows that verbal insults trigger a strong P2-wave effect in the brain, heightening sensitivity to negative words while raising cortisol and impairing judgment; positive language, by contrast, promotes oxytocin secretion and strengthens trust.
02 Automatic Reaction: The Root Cause of Emotional Instability
When we lose emotional control, we are in fact being hijacked by a kind of "subconscious"—in psychology it is called the ABC principle; put plainly: what happens (A), and how we think about it (B), determines what we do (C).
In truth, the triggering event (A) is only the fuse; what truly determines emotion and behavior (C) is our cognition of the event (B). Neuroscience shows that when a stimulus appears, the amygdala responsible for emotional response is activated first, while the prefrontal cortex responsible for rational judgment needs about 6 seconds to intervene—this is the physiological basis of "automatic emotional reaction."
The reason the Luo Yonghao–Jia Guolong dispute intensified is, at its core, that both sides fell into an automatic emotional loop: Luo Yonghao cognized Xibei's act of "not clearly labeling prepared dishes" as "deceiving consumers" (B), and then took the adversarial response of "public criticism + offering a bounty for evidence" (C); Jia Guolong cognized "Luo Yonghao's public questioning" as "malicious slander" (B), and made the emotional response of "forceful counterattack + threatening to sue" (C). This "stimulus → negative cognition → emotional confrontation" loop turned an industry topic that could have been discussed rationally into a purely personal conflict.
Setbacks and disagreements are inevitable in life, and those with emotional stability can always keep a clear head amid ups and downs. Xibei's experience also proves this: had Jia Guolong stepped out of emotional confrontation after the prepared-dish dispute erupted, rationally answered consumers' questions about "the definition of prepared dishes," and proactively optimized dish labeling and pricing strategy, he might not have fallen into a four-month opinion whirlpool, let alone reached the point of mass store closures. Conversely, emotional stability gives one the composure to weather storms. Zeng Guofan was short-tempered in youth and often quarreled with others over trivial matters; later he used "journaling to curb anger," recording and reflecting whenever emotion rose, and gradually built the habit of emotional stability. This trait kept him clear-headed through the ups and downs of officialdom and ultimately led to his accomplishments. Buffett also said that "the key to investment success is emotional stability"—when the market crashes, he is never swept up by panic but calmly analyzes the situation and positions quality assets, which is the core reason he can profit over the long term.
In the long run, emotionally stable people are not trapped by temporary gains and losses. They know the essence of life is ups and downs; only by holding the bottom line of emotion can they accumulate positive energy through wind and rain, and slowly grow into a clear-minded, composed self. Whether in personal growth, entrepreneurship, or life choices, emotional stability is the underlying support for navigating uncertainty.
03 How to Break the Automatic-Reaction Mode?
Fromm wrote in Escape from Freedom: "Freedom is not doing as one pleases, but self-mastery." True freedom is never venting emotion at will, but having the space to control one's own choices between stimulus and response.
For ordinary people, emotional stability is never an innate talent but day-after-day deliberate practice. Here is an extremely simple practice method: change your EQ in 6 seconds, and gain emotional stability!
Based on the physiological mechanism of the "amygdala's 6-second emotional-response window," when something makes you angry or impulsive, immediately stop all responses, take 3 deep breaths, and count to 6 seconds—this lets the brain switch from the "emotional brain" to the "rational brain," breaking the "stimulus → anger → counterattack" automatic loop. Simple as it seems, this method helps us hold the rational bottom line at critical moments. In different scenarios, more operational pause techniques can be used:
Workplace communication scenario: when contradicted by a colleague or rejected by a boss, excuse yourself with "let me get some water and clear my head"; the act of getting up for water naturally pauses 6 seconds, avoiding an on-the-spot emotional rebuttal;
Family quarrel scenario: when emotion rises, proactively say "I'll go to the balcony for some air, let's talk later," achieving a pause through physical separation to prevent the argument from escalating;
Online communication scenario: when you receive an offensive message or see controversial remarks, do not reply; close the chat window and take 3 deep breaths, then reopen it after 6 seconds to think about how to respond;
Public conflict scenario: when encountering sudden situations like cutting in line or being accused, first pause 6 seconds, silently say "deep breath," then express your position in a gentle tone to avoid physical conflict.
Note that during the pause you should focus on breathing and empty the mind, avoiding replaying "how could he say that" or "this is too much," otherwise it deepens emotional drain.
04 Emotional Stability: The Composure to Meet Life's Challenges
Life is lived by yourself; don't let emotion ruin it. When we can keep a clear head while angry, speak well and act rationally, we find that life can be this smooth—and this is the highest form of freedom. I think this freedom of not being swept away by emotion is the composure to meet all of life's challenges, and the most precious wealth of life: when we can keep a clear head amid surging emotion, we have already won most of life. This also reminds us: the height of life ultimately depends on the degree of emotional stability; only by holding the bottom line of emotion can we go far with steady steps.
