Thursday, July 15, 2004

Emotions Matter

Life is a roller coaster of emotions. Emotions define every moment of our lives. The decisions we make, the things we say and every thing else depends on our emotions.

Did you ever realize that there are thousands of words in the English language just to define different feelings? Check out this link for a sample of ‘Feeling Words’. These words are just a sampling of the variety of feelings that a person can experience during a lifetime. And to understand the fact that each of them actually affects your life is amazing.

Every since Daniel Goleman’s book on Emotional Intelligence was published in 1995, there have been tremendous strides towards understanding the effects of emotions on a person’s behavior. Research has confirmed that IQ by itself does not define a person’s standard of living. A person with a high IQ but with no control on emotions can almost never be a successful person. It has been proven that people with moderate IQ but with a good understanding of their emotions have been successful.

The concept of EI has spread to various areas of society. It has helped people be better parents, better spouses and better friends. Companies have adopted EI as one factor that affects employee performance and customer satisfaction. Employees are being trained to recognize and control their emotions. This helps improve the work environment and increase job satisfaction. You can find information on various EI research projects here.

Now consider a society where everyone can harness their emotions and act emotionally intelligent - a society where every person understands the value of happiness, grief, anger and all the other emotions that a person can experience. That would be the perfect world – free from all the social evils we face today.

Now this is real life. It is almost impossible for all people to control their emotions. But, each of us can at least try to harness our own emotions. If we can’t make the whole world a better place, we can definitely make our lives and the lives of the people around us so much better. That in turn will pave the way for a better world.

So, how are you feeling today?


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