Before you start reading this article I'd like to say what I write about may not pertain to everyone. You may not be affected as much as me from electronic devices. I'm just writing from my own experience in hoping it will help people have a more positive life that are like me or who know someone like me and can pass on the information to them. Also this article will be a segway from my last article(The Lost Art of Entertaining) to another article I will write after this one with my thoughts from a book called Emotional Intelligence.
About a month ago I started have a money problem and I went into a controlling survival mode about it. This problem had to be fixed. I was focused. Doing the budget, working overtime, and keeping track of our spending. On top of that it's tax time of the year and having to shovel snow every other day. I was getting tired, cranky, and came to a point where I didn't want to do anything or talk to anyone. My brain felt fried. My wife kept asking me what she could do to help and I told her, "Just leave me alone." I went to my bedroom and laid down for awhile. Then I went to my drawing table and worked on my drawing while listening to music. A song came on itunes radio about how much God loves me and I started softly singing along. While I was singing and being reminded of how much God loves me it was like a switch turned my emotions back on. I listened to a few more songs while I drew more, just taking in how emotional I felt. Then I went and hugged my wife and told her I'm sorry and that I love her very much. She couldn't believe how much I changed in about an hour. I thought to myself, "There has to be something to this!"
These are the thoughts that I came up with:
Suppressing emotions can lead to depressing especially in right brained people like me. I've been emotional all my life. A lot my life, looking back, I suppressed those emotions, therefore I've dealt with a lot of depression. I think a lot of people do this. Every year, at least lately, we hear about some celebrity overdosing on depression related medication or committing suicide because of it. Most actors or actresses are right brained as are people in the music industry.
It's harder to learn from sources that have no emotional element. Think back to high school. Who were your favorite teachers and why? More than likely they were the funny ones or the ones who told stories as examples about what your learning. Laughing is an emotion and stories are have emotional elements to them. I had a hard time in school especially with doing homework. Reading textbooks just made me want to take a nap. Now if I read a book like Unbroken, I can't put it down. I remember most of the details even the historical parts. Philip Yancey is a great writer and uses stories throughout his books and writes with emotion. Now think of music or movies you love. How can most of us repeat every line after only listening or watch them about 5 times? Music brings emotions out that is why we SING the alphabet song.
Being emotional makes you a better leader. I've read books that say differently. In some instances maybe this is true, but lets look back in history. David was a great leader. A man after my own heart God calls him. Did he have emotional restraint? Nope, he danced like a buffoon in the middle of the street. Abraham Lincoln was a great story teller. He wanted the slaves freed so badly and with that emotion he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. Martin Luther King Jr. also was a great leader of the elimination of segregation and civil rights, even with death threats if he didn't stop. Did Jesus keep his emotions in check? His love for us drove him to the cross to die for our sins. In all these instances being emotional helped these people stay focused on what they were trying to accomplish which to me is the definition of being a good leader.
Thanks for reading and as I said there will be another article after this one after I read Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. A book that is recommended in a lot of places on the internet that I have been visiting lately.
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