We had the need to be emotionally intelligent at some point, but has it been enough?
The term has been thrown around at us for the past two decades – but with the advent of social media and it’s heavy influence on our everyday life – the level to which we have taken our emotional involvement in social networks is very scary (at least to me. I am one of the least media savvy people – but I love to write and share my stories so here I am. And I am under a pseudonym so it’s all good).
The basic premise of emotional intelligence is well – recognition of and appropriate use of emotions to get work done, form meaningful relationships and be successful at whatever you do. You don’t have to be 4.0 someone to do well in life – if you have a high level of EQ (Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence) you’re good to go, and most probably you will live upto 90, if not more.
But since we are all extremely active on our social media accounts – there is one personality kind which we have come across who are not emotionally intelligent – trolls.
Unfortunately, they are those terrors beyond the wall. And the night is dark and full of terrors. Thankfully for us humans, our emotions can be as good as a Night’s watch as be the cause of endless wars. Revenge is good, as long as we have something to gain from it. And if it is not an Iron Throne – it is quite useless.
All we have to do is know – how to make them our allies, not our enemies.
Aristotle once wrote: “Anybody can get angry, that is easy but getting angry with the right person, at the right time, to the right degree – for the right purpose and in the right way – that is not in everybody’s power and is not easy.”
If you’re keeping your emotions in check and are not trolling anyone – you have already taken two steps towards emotional intelligence ->
Self-awareness and self-control.
But if you are being trolled – how you respond – is also quite indicative of whether you are emotionally intelligent or not. Do you respond back with equal flare of emotions and anger? Do you stay quiet and let them write whatever they like or block them? Or do you engage and empathise? The last one is the most difficult to do – but the most efficient. And it is the only way in which even your enemies may end up linking you.
You might think – who has the time? But if criticism of any sort or negative comments effect you, and you end up being bothered about what is written about you – it is worth a try.
I was trolled once for putting in a harmless comment to a post. A hundred likes and a few trolls – from one post it was obvious that the person enjoyed trolling and he/she fed on counter reactions. My reaction was simple – I didn’t feed him anything and nothing happened further. But it is also a fact – that if you must react your argument should be logical. However, if with you its different – you find such comments offensive and you feel the need to understand what is wrong with your post. The best way is to have a one to one dialogue and ask what’s exactly wrong – show empathy, see things from the others’ perspective and acknowledge the reasons for such a reaction. You may not agree with the reasons, but being tolerant of a different point of view is all we need to do. It might be a fruitless way of dealing with trolling, if you face a lot of it on an everyday basis. But done once in a while – it will definitely make you emotionally satisfied, empathetic and in sync with your own emotions. We are called human beings for a reason – and we must not forget that this is what binds us all together.
