An emotional analogy I've often made, related to EE, is automatic gain control. When you experience long periods of emotional stability without significant high

An emotional analogy I've often made, related to EE, is automatic gain control. When you experience long periods of emotional stability without significant highs or lows, your brain applies a form of gain control. This makes the threshold for something amazing very low and something awful very high. As a result, people can feel overwhelmed by relatively trivial issues. Many self-help books, religions, and philosophies emphasize appreciating past experiences or considering how situations could have been worse. I see this as a way to counteract the brain's natural tendency to adjust its gain control.