{"id":479,"date":"2022-10-06T06:27:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T06:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/blog1\/wake-up-how-to-stop-being-passive-through-emotional-intelligence\/"},"modified":"2023-08-22T18:37:37","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T18:37:37","slug":"wake-up-how-to-stop-being-passive-through-emotional-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/blog1\/wake-up-how-to-stop-being-passive-through-emotional-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"WAKE UP! How to stop being passive through emotional intelligence."},"content":{"rendered":"

We are becoming passive creatures, growing accustomed to the mundane nature of our everyday lives. We become ignorant to the lives of the people around us, dismissing them as just another face in a crowd. While waiting in line, we think about how inconvenient this line is for us personally, become annoyed with those around us, and get wrapped up in all of the other things we could be doing instead of waiting in this line. We pass by beautiful things without giving them a second glance, too wrapped up in our own little world to notice the splendor of our surroundings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s so easy to be wrapped up in this selfish view of the world. It is as if so many of our mundane actions throughout the day are tainted by the automatic consideration of our particular needs, wants, and desires.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our passivity is dangerous. The ability to identify someone we do not know as an individual with meaning and a story is a key aspect of empathy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the reasons why I believe Christianity is still so relevant is the fact that it puts so much value in the person in front of you, the person you pass in the airport, or the person in the car beside you. A major Christian ideal pulls on the idea of Imago Dei, meaning made in the image of God, which emphasizes our likeness as a species as well as the inherent value in each person. It\u2019s a unifying message, pointing to the fact that we all have an underlying similarity. We are all so much more alike than we sometimes choose to believe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is an intentional mindset though, we cannot simply acquire this attitude towards others, as we are naturally selfish beings. We have to make an active choice to consider the background and circumstances of everyone we come across. It takes drive. This might seem overwhelming, but in the end, I have found that when I am intentional about this mindset switch, my life becomes so much more purposeful. There is so much beauty in the small interactions with strangers that would otherwise not occur without the implementation of this more mindful attitude. As we push on and develop this new mentality, there is a shift. The mundane patterns we used to fall into now become highlighted as we begin to feel emotions more deeply. Lines are no longer just lines, they are opportunities to strike up small conversations with the people around us. We no longer focus on the \u201cinconveniences\u201d we are facing as our focus shifts to the complexities of our surroundings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In class, my peers and I have learned to practice the \u201cnoticing game\u201d, a game which draws us to look at our surroundings with more intensity, seeking out the small details which would normally go unnoticed. I find myself playing this game when I am in nature, searching for details which the normal passerby would not care enough to seek out. As a result, I have been able to interact with nature and learn more about the flora and fauna in a way that is almost worshipful. There is so much intricacy found in nature, and I can not help but believe that there must be some divine force behind it all. Because I have chosen to step out of my state of passivity in nature, I now feel a renewed sense of passion for nature and conservation. Due to my heightened sense of awareness, my emotions are changing the way I am interacting with the world around me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the book, <\/span>True to Our Feelings<\/span><\/em>, Robert Solomon argues that our emotions are our way of engaging with the world. They are essentially our judgments of the world around us, although they can sometimes be misunderstood by others or our evaluations of situations can be wrong. They enrich our lives, allowing us to see life through a lens with such passion which would not be possible without emotion, which Solomon focuses on in chapter 14 specifically. He points to the example of his wife\u2019s nose, which he refers to as \u201cone of the wonders of [his] world\u201d. Here, he argues against the cynic and the indifferent outlooks on life, they are not sustainable in the fact that they cause the viewer to dismiss for the sake of their worldview what might be good. When he could dismiss his wife\u2019s nose as just another nose, instead he would miss something which he loves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One may look at my argument and object, saying that it\u2019s corny and dismissive towards the darker sides of reality. Of course, I am by no means denying the existence of evil and injustice in the world by suggesting that we look at the positive. The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, awareness can help us in the face of perpetual struggle. The awareness I am speaking of not only refers to the positive in life, but also highlights how we can make this world a better place. Awareness sometimes requires us to get angry, which is not necessarily a negative thing. As Solomon says, \u201cAnger, for example, is not just a burst of venom, and it is not as such sinful, nor is it necessarily a \u201cnegative\u201d emotion. It can be \u201crighteous,\u201d and it can sometimes be right. \u201d (Solomon 18). We must feel for the hurting and bring awareness to the struggle which minorities face.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Emotions are our way of engaging with the world. We must feel the good and \u201cbad\u201d emotions in order to truly live.<\/span><\/p>\n

We must deeply feel emotions in order to stop living passive lives and truly soak in every beautiful moment of our lives. By emphasizing our emotional intelligence, we can view the world with more clarity, and we can even enrich our outlook on life as it adds color to our daily patterns of life. Emotional intelligence also points to the necessity of managing such emotions, which Solomon argues is not an issue of control, but rather a matter of intelligence itself. \u201cSo, to me, one of the things that an adequate theory of emotions should do is to make it clear to us how reflection makes possible emotional intelligence, integrity, and responsibility. \u201d, says Solomon (Solomon 307). Awareness is required in the pursuit of emotional intelligence. We must draw upon our emotional intelligence in order to interact with the world, and we must focus on the wisdom of the world in order to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n

By becoming more aware and less passive, we must focus on our emotional intelligence so that we can interact with the world and judge our circumstances accordingly. A life without emotions is a bland life, and we have to fight against the pattern of the mundane daily routines.\u00a0 As Solomon argues, we must realize what wisdom is in the world, and once we do so, we need to implement it in our emotional lives. Once we do so, we have found the key to living a full life and a good life. This is not possible without emotional intelligence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wake up from the monotonous rhythm of daily life. Learn how to truly name and feel your emotions. Seek out wisdom in the world, and practice it. Focus on the people you love and the nature around you.\u00a0 Rinse and repeat. Don\u2019t waste your time by not chasing the beautiful things in life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are becoming passive creatures, growing accustomed to the mundane nature of our everyday lives. We become ignorant to the lives of the people around us, dismissing them…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog1"],"splot_meta":{"author":"A.S.","license":"","source":"Google"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":565,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions\/565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}