Part of an answer is that natural selection shaped emotions such as anxiety, low mood, and grief because they are useful. More of an answer comes from recognizing that our suffering often benefits our genes. Sometimes painful emotions are normal but unnecessary because the costs of not having the emotion could be huge. There are also good evolutionary reasons why we have desires we cannot fulfill, impulses we cannot control, and relationships full of conflict. Perhaps most profound of all, however, evolution explains the origins of our amazing capacities for love and goodness and why they
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