Hidden Genius: Emotional Intelligence

 What is intelligence? How does someone quantify intelligence, or what gives someone the ability to judge another’s intellect?  One of my favorite hobbies is finding interesting people who’s brains I can pick.  I love just talking to the random guy who works at the grocery market behind the cash register.  There are plenty of interesting people I have talked, but I wouldn’t classify most of the as intelligent; at least, not as far as IQ would be concerned, as I perceive.  This does not stop them from being interesting nonetheless.   Many people fail to factor in Emotional Intelligence when sizing up someone’s characteristics.
When you meet someone, we look at many different things about that person.  We notice the way their hair is done, attire, posture, and many other physical traits.  Once you have engaged in conversation with this person, you then determine other qualities, such as intelligence, experience, hobbies, speech, etc.  How often do you feel like you have a good understanding about the way someone else feels about themselves?  Chances are, you rarely even pay attention.  As a culture, we are so involved with ourselves that we fail to recognize the emotional states of those around us.
Many people have no conception of emotional intelligence. You’re emotional intelligence is your ability to identify the emotions of yourself, and those around you.  If you can identify with the emotions of those around, you put yourself in a position where you can predict what the people around you will do.  This gives you the benefit of guiding a conversation, if you can see that what you are doing is bothering someone, you can change the habit immediately.
  If you are still confused about emotional intelligence, I will give an example of people with very poor emotional intelligence: people with autism.  Autistic individuals find it very difficult, or impossible to relate to someone emotionally.  They can not comprehend the concept of emotions, but often times express emotions themselves.  An autistic person can show no acknowledgement of someone’s (even a family members) existence, but they will laugh at whatever is going on in their world.  Several other forms of mental disabilities play an important role in the intelligence of the person, but I also believe they affect far more than just your mental and physical abilities.

I am bringing up this subject because I have spent a lot of time analyzing myself.  I am a firm believer that everyone is balanced, in some way, shape, or form.  Then I look at myself.  I am an intelligent individual, very athletic, good speaker, with a slew of other positive qualities.  Then I thought about it, and I have more positive qualities than negative qualities, that I know about myself. When I noticed that, I realized that contradicted my belief of balance in all things.  This forced me to take another step back, and reanalyze myself.  I realize many other qualities of mine, that are much more subtle are what balance me.  I am a relatively short male, 5’6”, with a high pitched voice, who loves to sing but is absolutely terrible at it.  I also have a problem with illusory superiority, which I have been on a mission to vanquish since I’ve discovered it’s existence within myself.  Once I noticed I had this problem in myself, I had to realize that I am really not as awesome as I would like to think.  I do like who I am, and I do enjoy my life, but I know that I am not perfect.
Those who have a very high emotional intelligence, are usually the ones who are incredibly charismatic.  The traits associated with emotional intelligence are very positive, and I can’t imagine why someone would be okay with lacking in this field.  Being able to identify the emotions of those around you, and yourself is a skill that I believe everyone should focus on developing.  This is hard in today’s society, because your emotions are constantly under attack.  I’ve mentioned my hatred for T.V. on my occasions, and this is no different.  T.V. is an amazing brainwashing machine.  From the moment that thing turns on, you are being put into a state of alpha by the electromagnetic waves produced by the T.V.  Everyone has experienced exposure to these waves, whether they realize it or not.  The slight high pitch sound you hear when you leave a T.V. on, even on mute, are the electromagnetic waves.  When you hear it, your brain immediately goes into alpha state, and your emotions are open to be toyed with. Even your computer monitor emits these waves, but I don’t have a problem with that, because you control what information you’re being exposed to.
I personally believe I have a solid emotional intelligence, and I would say many of the people I have been raised around do as well.  I do struggle with certain aspects of emotional intelligence, which I believe is important to the betterment of myself, if I wish to change.  I am not writing this to brag about myself (I’m not worth bragging about).  I’m writing this article because I want to throw another curve ball at you, so you can improve your life.  Perhaps you’ve already known about emotional intelligence, but you didn’t have a name for it.  Just like regular intelligence, I believe everyone is predisposed to reaching a threshold of emotional intelligence: meaning some people are going to be more emotionally intelligent than others.  I also believe that both intellects are correlated.

Life explained perfectly… probably explains my social disconnection as well.

A problem I have, and have had for a long time, is my ability to connect with someone on a deeper relationship.  As I have grown older, I have spent a lot of time reading, or figuring out puzzle.  This has been very beneficial to my intellectual capacity.  This has also been negligent to my emotional intelligence.  The more I learn, the more I ask “why?”.  This doesn’t fly over really well when I ask someone who just had a bad day at work, and almost got in two car accidents on the way back home, why they’re upset.  In my head, the fact that you didn’t get in the accident should be a time of rejoice.  This could just be my eternal optimism poking out; however, I also notice that I don’t get sad.  On an average day, someone doesn’t need a reason to be pissed off.  They can blow up on you, and will expect you to understand exactly why there is a problem. I have  this problem all the time because I am good at talking about the problems I have with people.
I’ve been in heated discussions with my family, where I ask them why they have that personal belief.  Despite all factual evidence I throw in their face to dissuade them from their belief, they say that’s just not how they “feel”.  I find it almost impossible to comprehend someone having a preference to responding emotionally than logically, but that is a major difference between men and women, and is probably a reason I have problems in relationships.  I mentioned I’m not perfect, and this is a battle I have to struggle with daily.