Random Thoughts 4 - Emotional Intelligence

People with higher emotional intelligence (emotional quotient) play with/use people (and their emotions) with lower emotional intelligence to work for their (People with higher EQ) advantage.

When in doubt, "Sleep over it" - my ex-boss.

"It is, what it is" - my ex-boss, take it or leave it.

When the time is not right, "Give some time to time".

Be Thankful to Life!

Every time you are faced with a challenge, the Life gives you an opportunity in the form of difficulties to prove oneself and to become and come out as a stronger and better person after each challenge

...The only problem is that the Life just gives too many of such opportunities and continuously ;)

Life is a Bitch! Not truthful to anyone.
"...and you have to be a dog to face it", commented a friend.

Just when you have successfully survived one difficulty, and are assuming some relief for the moment, right then the Life would give you another opportunity. :) The Life is indifferent to race, cast, gender and religion. It leaves nobody.

Irrespective of whether you accept the challenge and fight your way out or not, Life keeps on checking you out. However, no point in giving up, because if you give up it will push you back even harder, but if do not then there are high chances that you will be able to not only save your position but also make a progress.

Do not forget, irrespective of how smart you are, there is no short-cut and antidote to hard work. Even if you are the dumbest person on the planet, hard work is one thing you can bank on to make some progress.

Theory of Activity

At every point in one’s life time, one is faced with multiple mutually exclusive choices of utilizing one’s time for one activity at the forfeiture of other activities. Just that all of us got the same 24 hours each day, not a split second more or less. That is it!

You might want to do hundreds of activities, but you can possibly do only tens of them, because every activity takes some time and that’s the constraint everyone has. For example, you might want to sleep a lot, do long hours at office or study, go shopping, attend hobby classes, do social work, talk to friends, read a lot, watch movies etc. All of these are different activities and realistically you cannot do all of them.

Here comes prioritisation and another version of Life of no regrets however, this time in a perspective.
Choose only a few for one period (e.g. a week or month), and do the different ones for the next period. Alternatively, just do each activity for a much smaller time; still you will not be able to do all of the activities. Also, more efficient you become longer your wish-list of activities would become.

Now let’s analyse what’s happening unwantedly.

While you have prioritised to do certain activities, you have automatically forfeited other activities as you are not able to do other activities at that time. Always keep in mind that while you are doing one activity, you are forfeiting other activities, that is the opportunity cost of your time doing the chosen activity.

This is to not to worry you or keep you stressed 24 by 7 by 365 that you are wasting your time, rather to keep you informed and happy about the time that you are spending on the chosen activity and make you feel better and satisfied that you are in check of your time and whatever you are doing, you are doing out of a choice and with a caution in your mind that you are doing it because you want to do it over hundreds of other activities that you could do for you enjoy this activity more than others.

Note: Even as I am writing this post, I am incurring a cost out of a choice in terms of the time spent on the writing activity. Even as you are reading this post, you are doing an activity and spending time on it out of a choice.

Our life is more governed by the choices that we make than anything else | We all are victims of circumstances

At every point in one’s life time, one is faced with multiple mutually exclusive choices. One small difference in making a choice (taking a decision) can change the course of many events that would follow or probably change the course of rest of the life. The best way to explain and support this is the Butterfly Effect, in other words, small differences in the initial choice may produce large variations in the long term outcome. Two choices (decisions) that differ slightly from one another can lead to drastically different set of consequences; Our life is more governed by the choices that we make than anything else.

At every point in one’s life time, one is faced with multiple mutually exclusive choices. These choices are the result of prevailing circumstances and more often than not these circumstances warrant a choice that is the most optimal choice for the given circumstances (circumstances is a broad term encompassing a situation’s various aspect, e.g. information/ guidance available, level of experience, vision, risk – return profile, resources available to execute the choice and the expected consequences of those choice). The end result here is that our optimal choice (the best rational decision) for a given set of circumstances is pre-decided and is contained in the circumstances itself. We don’t have much leeway to choose the optimal choice; we are all victims of circumstances.

In summary, Circumstances compel us to make a particular choice (take a decision) | Our choice governs the consequences that result into a specific set of future circumstances.

Note: The author has refrained from qualifying a choice as right or wrong.

Life of No Regrets

After establishing the importance of a choice made, let me present the case that it is no one’s fault if a rational choice, as is the case more often than not, results into undesirable consequences.

At every point in one’s life time, one is faced with multiple mutually exclusive choices and makes the choice which is the optimal based on the forecasts of consequences following each choice as projected from current circumstances. Hence, even if a choice results into unpleasant consequences it is not one’s fault in making the choice, as more often than not one makes consciously the most optimal choice for the given circumstances (circumstances is a broad term encompassing a situation’s various aspect – information/ guidance available, level of experience, vision, risk – return profile, resources available to execute the choice and the expected consequences of those choice). So, irrespective of the outcome, don’t regret on a decision taken or choice made that is rational.

Now let’s analyse the “what if” case, ‘what if I had made a choice different than what I had actually made” to compare the consequences following each of the two choices:

Let’s say, at some point in your life you had four mutually exclusive choices A, B, C and D and out of many consequences following one of the four choices, one specific consequence could be one of the W, X, Y or Z, respectively, based on the choice taken.

Now, suppose that based on the circumstances prevailing at the time of making a choice among A, B, C and D, you found that the choice A was the optimal choice and one specific consequence out of many would be W. There is no guarantee that at a later point in time the actual consequence of A would or not be W, i.e. A might or not lead to W. Continuing with this example at a later point in time, let’s understand two major hypotheses.

If you are thinking, ‘what if’ I had chosen B and it would have resulted into X, which turns out to be a more desirable consequence when combined with other consequences resulted from A, and then it doesn’t work that way for at least two reasons as following:

Comparing imaginary Vs real: While you had chosen A there was no guarantee that it would have definitely led to W, how you can be so sure that had you chosen B it would have resulted in X. What you are actually doing is comparing a real set of incidences and events, i.e. choosing A and its consequences that have actually occurred, with a total imaginary set of consequences which you have no clue about how they would shape following the choice B.

Changing the choice might lead to a change in all the consequences following and not in a single consequence only: For a second let’s even assume that A has led to W and B would have for sure led to X. Had you chosen B then all other consequences following B could have been different than all other consequences following A and among these different consequences following B, X might not have been more desirable than W among the consequences following A. Just go back to the time of making the decision between A and B, wasn’t this the rationale of consciously choosing A over B that you forecasted all the consequences of A and B and analysed if W is more desirable among all the consequences of A or X is more desirable among all the consequences of B.

Summary:
Irrespective of the outcome don’t regret on a decision consciously taken or choice consciously made that is rational.
What if scenario doesn’t apply because it would lead to comparison of real incidents with pure imaginations.
What if scenario doesn’t apply because specific consequence of another choice might not be more desirable among the set of all consequences of the other choice.

Time Travel Test
Let me make your life a little easier, ‘what if’ you go back at the time of making the choice (taking the decision) and you are faced with same set of circumstances (as defined earlier in detail), would your conscious choice or decision would be any different. NO! Let me assure you, faced with exactly same circumstances, you would take exactly the same conscious decision.

Important Note: A further dissection of analysis into analysis by mind and analysis by heart leads to the most important result that even though the ‘Life of no regrets’ theory might be very well acceptable to mind but the heart, who hears no logic and just feels (at time bleeds due to the consequences following a particular choice), might find it difficult to accept the decision which might have actually been the best decision as analysed by the mind for the given circumstances and (heart) will always pull you towards the feeling that probably the decision you took was not the best one.

Acknowledgement Note: All those who confronted while accepting the theory.