Most if not all people are unequipped to deal with the feelings life bestows upon us. While we have the ability to figure out ways to cope with our environment, we are less successful in coping with emotions. The term “emotional intelligence” suggests this is something we can measure and work on but I think that we as a species we are deficient in this area.
In terms of coping with matters like fear, anger, jealousy, humiliation, greed or disappointment, we are like skinless animals left out in the cold. And while we have the intelligence to create heat shelter and body coverings to keep warm, we do not have emotional intelligence to ward off unhappy feelings. The best we can do is deal and carry on. We try to figure out if our responses and reactions are sensible or kind or whatever, but don’t feel much better until something resolves. We use mechanisms like faith, reason, distraction or withdrawal but these tactics help only to an extent.
Some time ago I took an emotional intelligence online quiz, answered about 150 questions and scored 61%. In exchange for revealing personal information and possibly a fee, the quiz offered me training to improve, but I chose not to.
I wonder how many of you would do significantly better or worse or if the quiz was rigged to give everyone a mediocre score.