Are You Being Labelled with Lots of "Should Be"?

Do you know how to identify the full spectrum of human emotions? And just what are any of these emotions trying to tell us? What should you do after these emotions arrive? And where do you keep them after they are ready to be put back into 'storage'?

All of these are what we deem as Emotional Intelligence.

Imagine that you are wearing nice clothes and strolling on a nice pavement in a sunny day, and enjoying the nice breeze and the warm sun. At this very moment, you love the weather, the environment, as well as the happy you. You notice someone some of the people around you displaying that dreaded lifeless expression, and all of the sudden upon looking at your cheerful disposition, reveal a slight smile. Nobody will probably deny that what was described is happiness and satisfaction, and it is one of the best and also one of the easiest to attain. In this form of happiness, it involves you and those around you. If you take a moment to observe further those passersby around you, you will realize what they see on you are being labelled with lots of small tags and sticky notes all around your body. Some notes are written casually and hang very loosely by a thread on your shirt, one slight pull and it will be removed; while some are done up elaborately, engraved in gold and chained securely on you. All different sorts of labels are stuck upon you, but what do all these labels tell?

Those casually scribbled notes may indicate some of your brief work done during your days as a student, while those intricately engraved plaques may signify a more inseparable part of your own identity, such as "valedictorian of your university" or "descendant of that influential person". All of these notes are a reflection of your own personal beliefs and perspectives in Life. Some of which may have been adopted from a simple hearsay, such as "I will never get along with someone whose astrological sign belongs to Capricorn"; while some others may have been thoughts that you truly want to believe in, like "money and career is everything" or "I must slim down, or else I would rather die."

Some of the contents on the labels are extremely trivial, and you wouldn't even mind if they get blown away by the breeze, such as "Coffee ought to taste bitter, not sweet". You may have opinions about it, but such principles are negligible in your life.

No matter what kind of notes there are, they do not hinder your movements in major ways, neither do they obstruct any of your senses nor do they stop you from enjoying the breeze and the weather. In other words, you are still free. 

The next big question is, when did we ever start to lose this freedom? Oftentimes, you start to lose it when all of these tags and sticky notes evolved into a magazine front page highlights, when all of these labels start to become signboards with flashing lights. That's when you are not free. Your mobility and senses are affected, and you can no longer feel the weather.

You may feel that this analogy is exaggerated; who doesn't have tens of hundreds of labels being stuck upon themselves everyday? How can any of these labels be magnified to a point where we feel paralyzed about it?

The most trivial of labels should simply stay as a tag, there is never a need for them to be magnified manifold. For when they even become something of a poker card, these labels will begin to obstruct you.

Some of these labels that we often take for granted: "Coffee ought to taste bitter.", "I gave birth to my child, so I am expecting this kid to be the top 10 in his or her class in terms of academics", "In order to marry my daughter, your dowry has to be at least $100,000", "This article I wrote must at least garner 200 likes on social media", "I am in a rush for time today, so someone must be onto my back if I am going to be stuck in a traffic jam", "Since I have bought these companies' stocks, I am expecting these stock prices to rise within a week." And the list goes on and on... The ways the labels are written very single second are literally limitless. Some will fall off after a while, and new ones will come sticking in its place. 

These notes are like scales, covering up our whole bodies. We can very well make use of these scale armour of ours and go around instructing others "This is not right!", or "That is too bad!"; we passed judgments of our own and make decisions with our own comments. Over time, we lose touch and gradually isolate ourselves from the world, the weather, the scenery and the people around us. What others do not see is our real selves; they only see the layers of labels and notes that are stuck upon us like a body armour.

Our daily lives are often dependent on others: Sanitation, transportation, entertainment, business transactions, all of which are closely knitted with many others, with the need to exchange feelings, different abilities and resources. Whenever we rely on others on various personal needs, there is never a need to force our own principles to suffocate them. We do not need to control anybody, nor do we need to be controlled by others. In other words, we do not need to take if these labels on our body and stick it onto someone else.

Whenever you feel that every matter has to have a "Should Be" condition attached, and it goes against your expectations, you will start to call upon your "combative" emotions to defend against it: Jealousy, Anger, Inferiority, Suspicion, etc. will all surface up. You unconsciously conjure up such emotions in an attempt to counter your opponents, where in fact, there was never such oppositions around in the first place. Upon realizing your own unconscious stance, how will you then step down when you are stuck on that imaginary "fighting stage" on your own?

When you are in a rush but find yourself stuck in a traffic jam, you feel that the traffic is against you. "Traffic" is your imaginary enemy in this instance; you start to feel anxious, anger and resentment, and that what's after that? How will you put down this enemy of yours? When we declare: "My kid has to get into the top 10", "Your dowry has to be $100,000", have we ever asked what kind of rights do we have? Our pride and expectations played out by our willfulness carelessly took over the stage and then stay stuck firmly in place.

Any emotions being played out which sprouted out of nowhere often do not have any proper place to go back to. Just where do all these endless "Should Be-s" come from? When these principles that are taken for granted are not closely examined, with its origin being unclear, then why do they still stick to our bodies, become our labels which we build our lives on and can even be befitting to act as our scale armour?

"You are the child of your biological parents." is a label that is certainly precious and deserving enough to be engraved on a gold plate. However, when the gold plated plaque becomes so large and heavy that you can hardly move an inch with it, this plaque would appear more of a shackle than a label. 

You have to be yourself, and make yourself bigger than any of the labels and tags that are on you. These labels should serve as embellishments that enhance who you are, and not drag and blind you wherever you go. Be selective on those labels on you, and keep those that are worthy of helping you build a better life ahead and flaunt them at your own will. As for the other labels that are irrelevant or not as productive to you, treat them lightly and use them only when it is appropriate. However, you should never use them to judge others, or criticize yourself, or even to trap yourself in them. 

When you realized that "Money is everything" is believable, then you ought to take the effort to investigate whether this principle has any truth in it. If it does, then you can further investigate what kind of relationship can be established between money and self. Could you possibly make use of it to start a business? Or rely it to maintain a relationship with loved ones? Once you form an idea, set this idea as your target, and then set off to achieve it, step by step. After a thorough self-reflection, you realize this could be something you want as "Self". You will be able to withstand self-doubts, and your inner strength will increase, and your vision will start becoming clearer along the way. 

However, if you only take it at the surface value that "Money is everything", you will get easily distracted by many, and often, trivial matters in Life, such as traffic, weather, comments by some celebrities, extravagant photos by some movie stars, or even coffee ought to be bitter. How will you then have the focus and inner strength to figure out who this "Self" really is, and what kind of person you will like to turn out to be?

In office politics, there is an intense need in the majority of us to rise up the ranks and be successful in the eyes of others. Most of those who based their importance in the workplace will likely build an identity surrounding the judgments of others. Only a handful truly "understand" the life that they want for themselves, accepting "evaluations" from others selectively, and then patiently inch closer to reach the targets they set for themselves. These people may not climb the highest in their career ladder, but they are certainly the most peaceful and the most balanced lot of all.

Be the master of your own emotions and feelings, and not be easily swayed by them. Having high Emotional Intelligence will allow you to differentiate different emotions, and conscious of what each of these emotions can do to you. Developing Emotional Intelligence is not so that you can do business well, or you can become the popular one among your friends and colleagues. These are some of the convenient advantages you enjoy as a result of attaining high Emotional Intelligence. The real intrinsic value of developing Emotional Intelligence is that you will also be able to slowly discover yourself throughout the process. Whenever we mentioned "heart", it really exists, albeit rather abstract, our heart essentially forms the bedrock on how we live our own lives. IQ does not equate to wisdom, having high IQ can sometimes cause anxiety and make you exhausted, and certainly does not guarantee you freedom and happiness. High IQ does not solve the heart problem, while wisdom can. The basis of wisdom is understanding.

This world is filled with many things that do not matter to us, but everything that is related to the heart, always matter to us. This world will never belong to any of us, but the heart will always belong to us. The vastness of this world may numb us from ourselves, but the greatness of the heart, will strengthen your own identity. Having a heart is a great gift and we ought to enjoy this gift bestowed upon us. Emotional Intelligence will help us discover this gift, and unlock our potential to its fullest; no other gifts in this world can be bigger than this.