WP Daily Prompt – Emotional Quotient Tid bits

How are you feeling right now?

It is 8 PM , as I leave from my office to home, quite a bit of a hectic and tiresome day. Slightly tired but had a quick meeting with colleagues before winding up.

More than writing about me, I wanted to share information via my blog. Though this isn’t my speciality, I will delegate the information seeking to chatgpt so that u get a summary of my research.

EQ or Emotional Intelligence is how we handle our situation at various circumstances. It is essential to build relationships, effective leadership and overall well being of oneself.

It was coined and popularized by Daniel Golemans , in his book” Emotional Intelligence “

IQ is measured by cognitive abilities, EQ assesses Emotional and social skills.

High EQ is often more predictive of success in life than EQ. IQ is relatively stable throughout life where as EQ can be developed and improved with practice and self awareness.

EQ can be categorised into 4 different components, namingly

• Self awareness
• Self regulation
• Social awareness
• Social skills

Higher EQ attributes to better mental health, reduced stress, improved well being. there are various tools to measure or assess the EQ of a person , namely, Emotional Quotient Inventory EQI and MSCIET. (fun task, Google urself and try to pronounce the name of this test).

EQ is very critical in conflict resolution, and negotiation. Teaching emotional intelligence to children have long term benefits, helping them to form healthier relationships and handle challenges sensibly.

How to teach to Children? here are the ways:

• be a role model. Thinking of my kids , not sure I succeeded in this but have influenced them a lot
• Help children to label emotions.
• Validate their feelings by trying to understand and accept their emotions.
• Teach empathy, ask them how would others feel in some situation.
• Listen to them . A difficult task for me.
• Use stories and role play, discuss how would characters in a story feel.
• Encourage to express them via art, writings , etc.
• Practice patience. Again a difficult one for me, but I’m trying to become a shifu in this.
• Reward positive behaviour. Yes atleast one I do, my kids have earned a few pounds for the good work they did.
• Open communication. Another difficult one.

On a lighter note, the EQ studies are gender biased. Yes women tend to score higher than men in EQ.( no, not again 😭)

Thanks

Mukund

WP Daily Prompts – TEMPLES of South India to the TABLES at Las Vegas

Describe your most memorable vacation.

Most memorable vacation. Every vacation is memorable to me or some incident in those trips. To recollect some of them on a chronological order.

The one that I went to Kashmir when i was 4, 5 years old. I don’t recollect but based on a photo where I and my sister dressed in Kashmiri dress, I still add it to my vacation list. I also remember something like, seeing a python snake during the trip and at a point we got down the bus, to escape some terrorist activity..I’m not sure how much of is this true but I still have those memories.

My father was working in the telephones department, the now BSNL. He used to take us to trips on LTA once in 3, 4 years. Once we went to a trip to temples in Karnataka. Going to Udipi, Belur, Halabedu. Taking bath in the Tungabadhra river, visiting various temples. The beauty was that this trip was completely on bus and was arranged and accompanied by few of my dad’s colleagues. Every day, we will move back by one row in the bus. When you breathe out, you will get smoke out of ur mouth and that’s the first smoking experience we all enjoyed with family.

Subsequently, through LTA, there was also a trip to Dehradun, Mussoorie and Delhi, Haridwar, Kasi, etc. Another childhood trip. I still remember tasting a fabulous roti in a hotel called Akash deep in dhun.

My father at a trip from Haridwar

Every annual leave, I go to my native place Madurai or to my Periammas house. It was Palani, Dindigul, Trichy , udumalaipet. I was the youngest cousin and had lovely memories in each of those places.

Post which, at college days, visited Kerala and few other friends native place. That Is when I enjoyed the beauty of villages. I invited some of my friends to my home who were enjoying Chennai. However, I always liked their style of life.

In 2005, While At TCS, my first flight to Kolkata for a project takeover. Walking in Lungi in the streets of Kolkata 😀, and enjoying the Pani pooris and Rasogollas in the streets of Karunomoyee was fantastic.

It was around Christmas , we 4 of us went to Gangtok and witnessed the snow for the very first time. It was a such a fabulous experience having a local soup, riding the yak and seeing a frozen lake.

In 2009, my first Himalayan trek to Roopkund, with Tamal, Bindu and a bigger group of people for 9 days. Walking around 10-15 kms daily, staying in tents, witnessing some stunning views, talking bath in a cold falls which was around 5-10 degree. Drying our dresses in campfire. Walking in Lungi at Hinalayas, which my friends used to make fun of.

2010, took an official trip to Denver and my First trip there was to Las Vegas. No comments on Vegas , 😉. Visited Aspen to witness my first fall colours.

I grew up around the Temple streets of Madurai and was taught a lot of divine stories in my young ages , which had a great influence on me. The main advantage of Tamil Nadu, is its beautiful temples. KUDOS to my mother who is an encyclopedia of various temples in India but never admits that she knows about 100s of temples. Some of her suggestions were places deep inside villages and that we enjoyed travelling through the serene farm fields to witness a silent, divine, not so famous, uncrowded, village temple.

At times we take temple trips visiting various temples in and around Tamilnadu. I wish this becomes a routine and to write a weekly blog about the unexplored stories of temples

Visit to Los Angeles, subsequently to Vegas was super duper fun with a fun gang . San Diego and the la Jolla beach kayaking were awesome.

The latest trip to London, which started off with a bang taking me to a Cambridge hospital (https://mukerv.wordpress.com/2023/04/11/my-london-diaries-kothu-parotta-to-kambridge-hospital-the-addenbrookes/) and the recent boys trip to Wales, all have been fabo fabulous.

Thus my memoir has been great so far w.r.t vacations. Every vacation has one or some memorable stories. Ranging from the temples of South India to the poker tables of Las Vegas. Wish to continue further.

What else can we do until we leave. The destination is unknown hence spend time eating, sleeping, moving from point a to b in the natural labyrinth named warth, calling it a travel; working for money and thinking about our state of mind from the past, etc. etc.

Thanks

Mukundaraman

PS, Excuse Typos as my blogs are written on mobile and auto correct plays a spoilsport. Please point out so that I can correct it. Thanks to chatgpt for the tags