Early Life Fun

I still read this book of Buddhist quotes in the morning. This month the book is talking about how emotions are the hobgoblin of our happiness. How we must harness the desperate lurches and lunges of our meandering feelings. This is basically the main tenet of Buddhism itself. That is, the idea that life is full of despair brought on by our desires. All we need to do is stop wanting so much and see things as they are, objectively, namely misperceptions. Something along those lines anyhow.
I struggle with that idea. I don't know if I buy into it really. I reckon examining one's expectations is pretty important. Thats a little different than killing all desire. In a perfect world, perhaps one would feel, then act, then think later instead of struggling all the time to think through things. Granted, there is much negative that comes out of acting on emotion, and that has to be dealt with, but feeling it, feeling that gut instinct towards good, or helpfulness or whatever, that is what life is. A bunch of feeling and movements.
The Buddhist method is to let emotions flit off like the air they are. This certainly has its place. As an end game though, thats a pretty cowardly approach to pain.
I'll probably disagree tomorrow.