Will I work on my EQ?  Doubtful.  I have visited this site many times and am overwhelmed with all of it.

I am convinced that EQ will outweigh IQ each and every time.

Why?

Well, if you look around you, the most intelligent of people screw up all the time.  They screw up because they are not able to use their intelligence in any given situation…the emotional response has taken over and no amount of intelligence is going to change how they feel in the moment!

Rationality takes a permanent vacation when your entire response and beliefs are based on your emotional reaction to a situation.

People can live their whole lives in a very self-destructive mode based on their emotions.  They can come up with intelligent reasons why they are living in such a way without realizing their emotions prompted them to the point of harmful living.

The first example that comes to mind is about a person living with an eating disorder.  First they are out of control, either purging, bingeing or starving themselves in reaction to pure emotions they cannot handle.  Once on the road to ‘recovery”, whatever road they choose, the battle is a daily one and rationalization becomes part and parcel for the duration of the process.

Then, a new way of eating and living is born, seemingly healthy and intelligently thought out, based on sound food choices etc.  But, if you look closer, you can see the constant obsession with food is still there.  Not only is it still there, it is high on that persons list of priorities. All that healthy living lifestyle, eating right and exercise, is still primarily all about control.

It becomes; control what you eat, control your movements, control how you look, control yourself.  Thoughts about emotions and what brought them to that brink are repressed, not spoken of and hidden away, buried beneath a whole lot of self-delusion.  And that is why the urges to binge, purge and starve never really go away.  Because the emotions are not really dealt with.  To fully feel and deal with the devastating traumas that brought them to such a destructive self-view is too much to handle so the lid must become more firmly locked into place by any means possible.

I subscribe to the mindset that says “lock up the hurt and throw away the key”.  Never letting it out would work best for me.  After all, if the mind turned itself off to protect you from the emotional devastation of the trauma, then the mind must have known what it was doing, right?

Wrong, so the experts say.  Repressing only works for a time.  The trauma to your psyche comes out, no matter what you do, it will seep out in the most insidious ways.  But it will always come out.

I half believe the experts are correct.

I only half believe them because I was able to repress emotional trauma for 40 years.  40 years is a long, long time!  Unfortunately the time came when I have had to fight with the emotions, push them away, try to re-bury them because the “seeping” has taken its toll on my life in a major physical way.  I do not want to deal with any traumas of the past.  I do not want to deal with anything that was ugly enough to be locked away so tightly.

I just don’t want to.

I’m busy.  I don’t have time for this.  Stuff to do.  Lots and lots of stuff.

Who’s got time for all this self-improvement crap?  Not me.  Besides, I’m too old for this, right?

I’ll think about this tomorrow.  Or maybe the next day…next month…next year….never.