4reevolution's Blog

Emotional Intelligence, which become widespread with Daniel Goleman’s book “Emotional Intelligence”, introduced a broader concept of “intelligence”. Daniel Goleman explained not only the relation between our brains and our emotions in a digestiveable way, but also included the concept of empathy in the “assessment” of a person’s intelligence. Now, why I am including a page on Emotional Intelligence in this blog? Because this concept is based on the idea that people have the ability to recognize, evaluate and to certain extent control their emotions and therefore their actions, and this is a powerful concept. It brings the responsibility back to the person and undermines victimization. It doesn’t mean that my emotions are now under control, but at least I have a better idea of where they can be coming from, and by recognizing the source I am certainly in a better position to deal with them and take action.

Based on this concept, there are now educational programs for children and youth at schools leaded by a couple of organizations, e.g. Success For Kids: sfk.org/en/about; and CASEL- Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning: www.casel.org/home.php. These programs are an important element in children’s education because they build the base for a better society of human beings who are in more control and take more responsibility of their own wellbeing, recognize the tremendous impact of their interaction with those around them, and most important who think for themselves…a father or a teacher who is more aware of how a word or an action is going to affect their child in the future (not only in the moment) will certainly be more careful…this is not to raise over-protected children but rather  to raise children with solid self-esteem, with the ability to think critically, and with more tools to face the dark side of the world while using the same tools to make their lives and the lives of people around them more enjoyable.

Idealistic? Absolutely…Highly optimistic? No doubt…but I bet knowing about these programs and knowing about the concept of emotional intelligence earlier would have saved me some suffering…suffering is a life teacher? hell yeah, but unnecessary guilt and resentment only hold us back from our continuing Evolution.