Emotional Intelligence - Practical Definition - II

...continued from Part I

Wants and Needs

The wants of the mind are endless as they say. When the mind wants something, it wants it desperately, not taking no for an answer and getting upset when it doesn’t get it. With such pressure, even if the mind does get what it wanted, like a little child moves on to the next demand, mercilessly discarding that for which it made such an issue. Morals and ethics don’t usually take part in these inner discussions. As they say – “the heart wants what it wants”. But wants create a feeling of emptiness and negativity when what was desired was not achieved, for whatever reason – logical or illogical.

But needs are different. They are things that are necessary and are not discarded when they are in possession. Needs are not endless and the satisfaction and happiness achieved to have them has a much longer shelf life. Needs might create an emotional disturbance when not achieved, sometimes more than wants also in case they are very urgent, for example, needing money to clear a credit card bill on time.

When the scarcity led mindset is very prominent, it can lead to much emotional imbalance because of a constant train of ‘I want’ thoughts. Obviously, to get all that is wanted may not be always possible. Even if it is possible, the void that gets created because of no residual satisfaction is quite disturbing emotionally, sometimes to the extent that an individual sells his Ferrari and becomes a monk realizing the uselessness of the whole pattern of thoughts as well as the kind of life lived because of these thoughts.

Needs don’t create that emotional disturbance in an abundance mindset led individual because the thought process is balanced here. Contentment is the virtue of people with the abundance mindset. Contentment is one highly disliked word by the urban citizens of the 21st century. Contentment is widely misunderstood to be a state of mind which has surrendered to failure and won’t try any more.

But this cannot be farther from being a wrong opinion. Contentment is the virtue of the abundant mindset which keeps wanting to grow like a tree but is happy with whatever comes in the way so that emotional balance doesn’t take a hit. Such emotional balance is the perfect recipe for correct decision making in an emotionally intelligent person.

Talking our heart out

Having said that, it is clearly seen that people don’t want to accept or at least show their being contended in the fear of being stereotyped as mentally weak to take on the struggles of life. Why do we care about other people’s opinion so much? Because as a social animal, we need support from fellow human beings to survive in a society and for that, I need to compromise or manipulate certain aspects of mine.

Another example of such behaviour is hiding being emotional to others, especially if you are a male. ‘Boys don’t cry’ is what is told to boys without realizing the harmful impact of this in the creation of an individual’s personality. Not only does this fellow become a hypocrite, the pent up emotions might enter his sub-conscious mind and make him an emotionally imbalanced male. Even for females, they are being stereotyped and ridiculed for being emotional for similar reasons which is unfortunate.