You had a bad week and took everything personally. By Sunday you had read three pages of this library and found yourself on all of them. On Monday you felt fine and none of it seemed to apply. I know me. It'll feel great, and a week later I'll be angry again and not know why.
From inside one bad week the two can be hard to tell apart.
01
What a mood does
A mood can touch everything for a while. When you are worn out, everything can seem too much. When you are worried about money, every email can read as bad news. Then the week ends, or the bill gets paid, and it may lift.
A mood also tends to be general. It can be much the same whoever is in the room.
02
What a rule does
A rule, if one is there, may be narrower and more regular.
It tends to answer to particular things. Each rule's entry lists its own. For Output they include finishing something, and a weekend with nothing due. For Chosen they include being passed over, and not knowing where you stand.
It also tends to run in the same order each time. Something sets it off, it gets read as meaning something, a protection starts, and you act. The topics change, and the order may not.
03
What to check
Two checks come from the method. Does it show up in more than one part of life? Does it show up, smaller, on days when nothing is wrong? Something that appears in only one place may belong to that place.
Each rule also has its own ordinary thing that resembles it and is not a rule, and that check belongs to that rule only. Grief after a real rejection is not Chosen. The rule shows in the pattern across unrelated rejections, and not in one. Watchfulness in a period that really is unstable is not Ahead. The check there is whether it continues when things are stable.
04
One example
For a month, it stings every time someone else gets picked.
It may be a mood with a cause. If it began with a breakup and eases as the months pass, that was grief, and nothing else is needed to explain it.
If it was there before, with friends and at work as well, it may be worth looking under. Even then there are at least two candidates, Chosen and Approval. Under Chosen the fear is that if you are not selected, you were not enough to select. Under Approval it is that without their verdict you don't know what you are worth.
Is there one specific person whose verdict runs this, or is it anyone who might pick you? Anyone is the Chosen answer. One person, someone you can name, is the Approval answer.
05
When you can't tell
Often you can't, from inside one week. Then there is not enough to tell yet, and that is a result. Subtraction asks for three unrelated scenes from different parts of life, which one week may not supply.
If a low mood does not lift, or gets heavier, that is not a question for this library. Licensed mental-health care is the right door.If tonight is an emergency, call or text 988 (US). This library is not that door.
The difference between a pattern and a rule is on Pattern vs. Rule: What Is the Difference?