For most of us, the journey from the classrooms to our colleges and beyond is a set pattern. Barring a few differences here and there, our lives pretty much revolve around making room for ourselves where we would be able to live on our own terms and build our fortunes with the wealth of knowledge and experiences that we gather along the way.
A very intelligent youngster once commented” The best years of our lives are wasted in studying” while another brandished a T-shirt saying, “I was born Intelligent, Education spoilt me!”
Isn’t it a fallacy that while in some parts of the world, our lesser privileged brothers and sisters crave for an opportunity to go to a school, in other parts, children spend their childhoods torturing themselves over cramming text-book content? If education were to have a universal appeal, why would some children be bereft of it and even more why would we lose interest in learning as early as the teenage years?
The answer to this may not be a one-liner and can well be the topic of a good debate; or better still, may not be unanimously agreed upon. Each to distinct preferences, likes and dislikes! ….. and here perhaps is sown the seed of confusion.
Education is different from literacy. Education effectively is the manifestation of the knowledge already in us. We probably live in good times when we have a lot of history to help us eliminate the unnecessary clutter of biases and prejudices that sap valuable life energy. The bottom-line is that we need to imbibe in us values, principles and morals that eventually shape how we develop our analytical, logical, reasoning, and creative skills. However, in the rush to complete assignments, take exams and tests and compete for a place in the University or the college of our dreams, we bulldoze the very emotion that had alighted the fire of our aspirations, namely the empathy and the connect that we intrinsically have for ourselves and the world around us.
As children we are naturally sensitive and high on the emotional quotient. But as needs, requirements and responsibilities kick in, we lose sight of our innocence and the courage that a free spirit entails.
Ironically, we spend most of our after years trying to locate that lost spirit which we try to win back by various workshops, seminars or even degree courses, encouraging us to ‘connect with ourselves and our passions”! This displays the helplessness we experience when we are caught on our wrong foot while trying to do the right thing and the war that we end up having within us.
The recent pandemic and the turmoil that followed is a classic example of the consequences of living as mechanistic, non-thinking and unemotional beings hooked onto the run-of-the-mill kind of a work-life routine. The Great Resignation that followed the pandemic exhibits the utter boredom and disgust employees face when they work without emotion to make ends meet and the desperation that results when they suddenly realize that there is more to life than receiving a pay slip every month.
How then do kids and college goers rebel against a system that is deeply entrenched in a strange round about way of doing the right thing? How do we stop wasting our lives in doing so many wrongs to achieve the right? How do we discover our enterprise through the emotions we feel?
The answer to this might lie in the thousands of successes and failures that have lived in the past or the motivations and inspirations that we can see around us.
All great minds have been shunned by the system prevalent at that respective time or era. Every novel thought has been first ridiculed, rebelled against and then accepted. It has always been the spirit coupled with conviction of purpose that has led the game changers to victory.
You don’t have to be a revolutionist to fulfill your dreams. You should just believe in yourself and have a good reason to do so.
This in small proportions or big, goes a long way in kindling the confidence required to solve problems at the workplace. This is also where the emotional connect is very important. In every decision making there is always an ethic that is involved, and it is this ethic that provides reason and rationale to launch plans and execute them to completion.
There are two kinds of ethic, the character ethic and the personality ethic. The character ethic is about values that sustain the trust, faith and courage that build the human bonds while the personality ethic is about asserting confidence in others about one’s credibility and worth.
Both these ethics are important and have their own place in our professional and personal spaces. However, the wisdom in getting the true benefits out of these ethics lies in understanding how much of each ethic to use when, where and how.
Stephen R. Covey in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People lays down the importance of understanding these ethics as well as a process flow of executing a plan that would effectively make use of both the ethics.
5.) Strive first to understand and then to be understood 6.) Synergize 7.) Sharpen the saw
He argues that though the personality ethic may provide quick fix solutions, it is the character ethic that provides the tenacity to finally accomplish one’s goals. However needless to say, the persona does play an important role, specially when building a first impression is the last impression and might affect the chances of winning a deal. But to decide the worth of a deal and sustain the energy to chase it till completion might require mental strength, and conviction based on a strong moral fiber.
The decision of where to apply the personality or the character ethic would always be based on one’s emotional intelligence which makes EQ or the emotional quotient quite an important factor in deciding the success of a project or objective. Wherever we are and whatever we do in our professional lives would always involve contributions to a society or a community. Hence understanding the connect and respecting the empathy that we would naturally feel towards one another would be pivotal in deciding how we achieve our milestones or goals. And sad but true, this is the very thing that stands challenged in today’s gadget driven world.
Digitalization has come to be a very important part of our lives and with a reason. Needless to say, Technology has made life a lot simpler by emerging as a support system that is free of human whims and fancies. But then, this also demands that we exhibit ethical purpose and intent in making decisions and dealing with our emotions.
The workplace can snowball into a major area of trauma and confusion if one is not aware of oneself. Understanding priorities and aspirations while freezing and zeroing down on personal goals and ambitions is as important as it is to study a trade or discipline.
The emotional connect hence sets the foundation of the enterprise that would eventually affect our lives and the empathy towards ourselves and the people we connect would decide our leadership skills and managerial capabilities.
To imbibe these traits, youngsters should take care to stick close to the instinct that keeps the human spirit alive. The sad part is that in today’s times this spirit is heavily compromised on as one gets lost in the ocean of information that we float in. The danger of having little knowledge about something is more predominant now as it is hardly possible to know everything and anything about a particular subject of interest.
Stay tuned for further discussions on discovering the importance of our emotions and how they affect our professional lives.
Till we meet again, reflect and reason
Empathize and Connect
Best Wishes and Take care.
Great article!