Growing up with emotional intelligence

Humankind, from the start of the “modern civilization”, has been trying to find ways to live life stress–free but no one has ever had any plain formula or secret to a tension-free living.

However, there is one word that most people say is helpful living without much trouble, and that is “Maturity”. Emotional Maturity has a lot of definitions, socially as well as scientifically as people in various fields try to understand it based on their experiences and study.

I want to share what I have learned from experts and my own experience to achieve this emotional intelligence.

As you age, you learn a lot of new things and ways to live in different situations and people.

What you do, maybe different from what others do. Outlined here are these ways that may help take off much of the stress that otherwise would not go away quickly:

You learn that what is in your head can’t automatically be understood by other people. You realize that you have to articulate your ideas clearly but carefully.

You cannot fairly blame others for not getting what you mean until you’ve spoken calmly and clearly.

You learn that – remarkably – you do sometimes get things wrong. With huge courage, you take your first faltering steps towards (once in a while) apologizing.

You give up sulking. If someone hurts you, you don’t store up the hatred and the hurt for days. You remember you’ll be dead soon.

You don’t expect others to know what’s wrong. You tell them straight and if they get it, you forgive them. And if they don’t, in a different way, you forgive them too.

Image By FinlayCox143  Wikimedia Commons

You cease to put too much hope in grand plans for the kind of happiness you expect can last for years. You celebrate the little things that go well. You realize that satisfaction comes in increments of minutes. You’re delighted if one day passes by without bothering yourself too much. You take a greater interest in flowers and in the evening sky. You develop a taste for small pleasures.

You cease to be so easily triggered by people’s negative behavior. Before getting furious or riled or upset, you pause to wonder what they might really have meant. You realize that there may be a disjuncture between what someone said and what you immediately assumed they meant.

You learn to calm your anxieties not by telling yourself that everything will be fine. In many areas, it won’t. You build up a capacity to think that even where things go wrong, they are broadly survivable. You realize that there is always a plan B; that the world is broad, that a few kind souls are always to be found and that the most horrid things are, in the end, will pass.

You learn to see that everyone’s weaknesses of character are linked to counter-balancing strengths. Rather than isolating their weaknesses, you look at the whole picture: yes, someone is rather pedantic, but they’re also beautifully precise and rock at times of turmoil. Yes, someone is a bit messy, but at the same time brilliantly creative and very visionary. You realize (truly) that perfect people don’t exist – and that every strength will be tagged with a weakness.

You cease to believe in perfection in pretty much every area. There aren’t any perfect people, perfect jobs, or perfect lives. Instead, you pivot towards an appreciation of what is (to use the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s exemplary phrase) ‘good enough.’ You realize that many things in your life are at once quite frustrating – and yet, in many ways, eminently good enough.

You learn the enormous influence of so-called ‘small’ things on mood: bed-times, blood sugar and nicotine levels, degrees of background stress, etc. And as a result, you learn never to bring up an important, contentious issue with a loved one until everyone is well-rested, no one is hyperactive, you’ve had some food, nothing else is alarming you and you aren’t rushing to catch a train.