Where have I been, you ask?
Truthfully, I’ve been in kind of a funk since the end of the
year. It seems that every time I sit
down at my computer I find myself googling political commentary – mostly commentary
that I agree with – and reassuring myself that I’m not the only one in a funk. This at the expense of writing. If it weren’t for running I’d probably
completely devolve into a bon-bon eating, political-commentary-watching couch
potato.
I exaggerate. It’s
really not that bad and we’ve actually done some fun things so far in
2017. I will write about those things, I
promise. But now I want to write about
emotional intelligence in the context of politics.
The 2016 election was one of the most divisive – and
emotional – in the history of our great nation.
In fact, it would be interesting to understand just how many votes were
cast based on emotion rather than facts or qualifications. Although I doubt there’s a way to capture that
information because I don’t think anyone will admit that they voted based on
emotion. I do know several people who
told me they voted for “the lesser of two evils.”
The results are in, and regardless of how we feel about the
new president, he is our president. There
are times that I watch him in action and think, “he totally lacks emotional
intelligence.” There are other times
that it seems like he not only has significant emotional intelligence, but also
knows how to play the emotions of others for maximum advantage.
This is my opinion only.
I am not qualified to assess the level of emotional intelligence of the
President of the United States, or anyone else.
I can use my own emotional intelligence, in this case,
self-awareness and self-management, to bring myself out of the current funk and
back into being creative. Self-awareness
helped me to recognize that my emotional state has taken me down a proverbial
rabbit hole that I need to climb out of.
Self-management comes next.
Now it’s time to take better action than watching Keith Olbermann. The good news is that I can. If there’s something I feel strongly about, I
can write my senators and my congresswoman.
I can write our governor – and I have!
And once having taken action, I can get back to living my life and doing
the things that I choose to do. And of
course, get back to writing.
I’m back.
