Six Seconds, an organization that promotes the awareness and development of EQ, has established through its research that the state of the global EQ has fallen significantly over the last few years. Technology and its continuous invasion into our lives is affecting families, businesses and classrooms with less face to face social and relational interactions. The irony of this is that it has also created us to be a global community with the ability to see and experience things instantly with a greater awareness of what life is like in the four corners of the world.
Just open your cell phones, start up your computers, switch on your televisions to experience firsthand, up close and personal, for yourselves, the affects this is having on your neighbors near and far. Last week took its toll on all of us. Not a day went by without a new demonstration of horrific violence erupting and filling our psyches with images and thoughts that affect us deeply and subconsciously with fear and anxiety.
This week we have the opportunity to experience our political process in action and to see thousands of Americans pledging their votes for the next president who mocks women and people with disabilities. His supporters by their very support for this candidate advocate racism, bullying, fear tactics, and a genuine disregard for human kindness and decency. Democracy of the people and for the people dangerously at a tipping point with people following someone who rants and raves as so many dictators have done in the past.
How can we begin to raise EQ (Emotional Intelligence) once again? I mentioned that we are at a tipping point and we can tip it back. Spend more time with your families without your cell phones. Give each of your co-workers a positive statement about who they are as people. Offer to lend a helping hand in a store, on a street corner or a neighbor. Remember to say you are sorry when you’ve made a mistake. Be grateful today, that you live in a country that allows us to consider all of the above. Malcom Gladwell the author of the tipping point showed us that if just 150 people begin to do something whether it be wearing a new fashion or drinking a new drink…before you know it, we have a fad. Be one of the 150 tipping us back to higher regard for each other and before you know it….we have a higher EQ.