What the World Needs Now is EQ -- Emotional Intelligence



Around the world, in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks, millions of us are reeling with shock, disgust, and despair. Unable to comprehend the terrorists' incomprehensible behavior, we rack our brains, asking ourselves and each other, "How could people do such a thing? How could these terrorists show such blatant disregard for human life? What would lead a human being to deliberately cause such massive harm to another human being, not to mention thousands of other human beings?"

But in fact, the answer to such imponderable questions can be found in our own back yard. It can be discerned by studying the "mini-terrorism" that occurs all around us: the child who bullies other children, the spouse who lies to and betrays a partner, the co-worker who campaigns against a disliked colleague, the boss who fires a subordinate not due to incompetence, but because the worker's competence feels threatening.

Take a close look at what goes on daily between ourselves and others and among the people we know. How do we hurt one another? How do we shatter the peace of those with whom we live and work? In what ways do us law-abiding citizens damage, wittingly or unwittingly, the psychologically safe harbor of other peoples' lives? In what ways, however small, do we participate in interpersonal terrorism?

The disregard for human rights, the betrayal, the absence of empathy, the dearth of cooperation and responsibility and tolerance that we've just witnessed is, unfortunately, replicated day in and day out, countless numbers of times, in our homes, schools, churches, and workplaces. Of course, these replications are not as massively destructive as a jet plane tearing through a building, but they nonetheless give a small glimmer of the same emptiness of character and the same lack of interpersonal connection that brought us the horrors of September 11th. The macrocosm does, indeed, reflect the microcosm.

What the world needs now is more EQ. The evil we just witnessed does not spring up randomly, out of a vacuum, but grows inside the minds and hearts of those who have made no room for what makes human beings unique among all species: the capacity for emotional intelligence. In the presence of EQ components like integrity, forgiveness, empathy, interdependence, tolerance for diversity, cooperation, and negotiation, travesties like the one of September 11th not only would not occur, but could not occur.

Let's start with our children, then, by helping them build up inside themselves the strength of character and the reverence for human relationship that render any form of terrorism--great or small, life-threatening or not--impossible.