EQ Famine Is For Real, Stop It Now!

The EQ famine is real. It is the silent assassin of humanity. One would go so far as to say, ‘stress’ – the number 1 problem in our society, is the direct consequence of poor EQ.

Not once is one debating the importance of Intelligence Quotient and Physical Quotient, but the lack of it when it comes to Emotional Intelligence. Our own conscious and subconscious behaviours are leading to this EQ famine.

We are all in constant pursuit of physical and intellectual training. Emotional training, however, is not even a subject of discussion. Those few in pursuit of EQ training, look towards either a spiritual/ religious Guru or towards a healthcare professional. One is considered risky and the other is looked down upon like some kind of stigma.

A few behaviours we could watch out for as a society, to address this EQ famine are:

Stop telling ourselves;

Statements are either true or false

To me Lord Krishna’s Geeta is all about the context, but the education system, media, politicians, even gurus and spiritual leaders, want us to look at life in black and white.

We are taught to celebrate white and condemn black. There is no discussion around grey. But those with experience will tell life is lived in grey. And grey is a gorgeous colour.

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We must teach the world to react to situations and not statements fed to us by the society.

Stop using sentences like

Grab life by the balls

The problem with statements such as this, is that we are putting life in the opposing team. This makes absolutely no sense. And in the literal sense, once you have grabbed life by the balls, what are you supposed to do? You have to let go at some point.

You are in the same team. Life is a something you put your arm around, make friends with, walk the journey with.

Stop the blame game;

Call out the underlying problem.

In all walks of life, unpleasant situations lead us to passing blame which could also be directed inwards the self. Stop to ask yourself whether it is the person or the situation that is unpleasant? Most times people don’t have anything bad to say about a person out of the context of the situation.

All we need to do is call out the underlying emotion and voila, we have the problem and the hence the situation.

A recent example I came across is where a difficult colleague needed to be asked to curtail the passive aggressive behavior in the professional environment. “It is passive aggressive to avoid meetings” resulted in a solution Vs. an emotionally charged statement like “It is not ok for you to always miss meetings”. The first statement is in no way trying to soften the blame or be diplomatic, but it is effective and productive.

Stop with the violence;

Kindness will do it

Even a statement like “you have put on weight” is a form of violence. Moral science books with stories of right and wrong were aimed to teach us ‘how to identify’ patience, justice, honestly and kindness. In hindsight, why were we trained in ‘how to be patient, fair, honest and kind?’. Where are the practice lessons, exercises and tests?

Just kindness is the answer to any situation. I’d pardon dishonesty and even lies in good measure. But unkind behavior is always a resounding ‘no’.

There is so much we can do to protect humanity. Let’s start with paying attention to EQ.

Image via Pixabay

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