Needing things to go a particular way

A reader asks me about this selection written by another reader that I featured in a recent post: "I have learned that with happiness, comes sadness... and to not block either emotion. Emotions are like yin and yang and you cannot have one without the other."

I had heard that one before, and I'd absolutely disagree with the yin and yang portion. I've had the, opinion, that feelings are without meaning and importance, but the positive ones feel good so I focus in on them, and the negative ones don't feel good so I think my way out of them as much as possible. If we are to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, that system seems to be the most efficient. Or maybe that's what I do because of the general lack of good stuff in my life for right now and the following few months due to the responsibilities and obligations that come with having future goals, as well as the anxiety of the ambiguity my future holds.
What's your approach to feelings currently, every-other-week therapy person? (Asks a rather depressed reader, I guess.)

And by the way, the way you tagged the Bill Burr video surprised me. You can probably easily see that he is not at all an actual sociopath, far from it actually. 
Anthony Jeselnik is probably the only sociopath comedian I know of, if he is one. He's at least as 'sociopathic' as I am, and openly calls himself one at occasions. You'd probably enjoy him if you haven't heard yet. (Spotify/Netflix)

My response:

Ha, for whatever reason I am bad at detecting sarcasm. I didn't really know who Anthony Jeselnik was before you mentioned him, except I was vaguely aware he dated Amy Schumer. I could see sociopath, and he's the type that also probably likes to see the sociopath in others as well.

As to the second part, I don't think you really can think your way out of negative emotions. I think you can avoid them, but they kind of stay there? Like no rational person would think that you can just ignore having to file your taxes and that by you ignoring it, the obligation to file your taxes would disappear too. I don't know why exactly this magical thinking is easy to believe with regard to emotions. Maybe it's possible to never notice an emotion, like those women who don't feel fear (http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-02/researchers-scare-pants-previously-fearful-patients), but even with those people, it appears that their body registers the emotion, and some place in their brain does, just not their conscious selves.

Have you ever remembered a situation associated with a negative emotion and felt the emotion again? If not, maybe you're much better at eliminating negative emotions than I am, but my guess is also no if you're depressed. If yes, this suggests again to me that ignoring the negative emotion does not actually eliminate it, but rather just forces it deeper into the subconscious, but still very active and possibly affecting everything you do.

For me, my every other week therapy approach has been to change the beliefs underlying a lot of my emotions. My most common belief along those lines was "I need things to be a particular way to [feel good]" Feel good could have meant a lot of more specific things over my lifetime -- feel happy, or feel satisfied, or get good sleep, or whatever. And then if you're this way and if things don't go that particular way, you not only don't feel good, you feel like you don't control your life and maybe even that no matter what you do you won't ever be able to ensure that you'll live a life of feeling good more often than not. And you're right in a way, because no one can guarantee or ensure that things will go a particular way. But if you learn to feel good without things going a particular way, that's a trick worth learning.