Editor’s note: the following is the seventh lesson in Younus AlGohar’s course on Self-Awareness, Level 2: Emotional Intelligence.
Having studied different cases relating to our intellectual well-being and welfare, the findings have astoundingly surprised me. I conclude that the human brain is so vulnerable to becoming prey to different situations where emotions play their part, and our emotional sanity is badly affected.
The Sense of Achievement and Sense of Deprivation
Let’s suppose a child asks his or her parents to buy an expensive toy. Some parents are financially well-off and have so much love for their child that they buy that expensive toy for their child.
In comparison to the child who acquired the toy of his or her desire, let’s talk about a child who had a similar desire but his or her parents were not able to afford that toy. As a result, there was a sense of deprivation felt by the child.
If this is just a single incident, whereby the child did not receive the toy from his or her parents, and when another toy is desired, it is given to the child, that initial sense of deprivation would become null and void. For the child who did acquire the expensive toy, the sense of achievement would have created this notion in his or her brain that anything is reachable. He or she begins to think, ‘I just need to say it for it to be done.’ This is where the imbalance in your emotional state occurs.
The Duty of a Parent
Once the child acquired what he or she desired, now is the time for that sense of achievement to become null and void. Next time when the child asks for even a small toy, don’t give it to him or her. By doing this, you are actually securing his or her emotional well-being.
Say no to one toy and say yes to the other. If you keep saying yes every time the child wishes to get something, you are actually destroying your child. If you keep saying no every time, this is detrimental to your child’s mental health. The same goes for the adults. If you try and every time you try, you fail, this is going to have a very bad impact on your emotional state.
What Affects The Emotional State?
We are living in a jungle of different types of emotions. Every action and deed is directly linked with an emotion. Every action and deed, whether it is your deed or somebody else’s, is going to have some effect on your emotional state.
What you do will shape up emotions of people for you. This is the reason why some people fake what they do in order to earn positive emotions from others.
Are You Emotionally Intelligent?
It’s not just your actions. What you say is also directly linked with emotions. When you say something nice, it will please many hearts. One nasty word from you will trouble so many hearts.
You are not emotionally intelligent if you do not realise this. Some wounds that are caused by weapons heal quickly, but the wounds done to your heart verbally stay on the soul forever and are never healed.
Conflict of Emotions
Do you realise that in the moment in time when you feel a sense of achievement, somebody in front of you is touching upon the sense of deprivation?
Day in and day out, we only care about ourselves and we hurt others. In order to have a good relationship, you want to make sure that your emotions are aligned and you do what you can to create an emotional bond [with those around you].
Food For Thought
Do we care about the effect of what we do and say on the people who live with us? We also must monitor ourselves and ensure that anything we say does not affect anybody’s emotional sanity or cause them to create negative emotions in their hearts.
On the other hand, if you are doing or saying the right thing — for the benefit of humanity — and it hurts somebody, then it is not your problem. This is because they do not care about humanity; the truth is hurting them because they care about their ego.