Love - The Key to Optimism: Path towards happiness

By Roshan D. Bhondekar

Surrounded by the challenges of present-day life, mounting work-pressures, the rat race to clamber to the top, insecurities on all fronts – professional as well as personal, how does one stand up un-cowed, and come out a winner? What are the life skills required, not just to survive, but to succeed as well?
Are the golden virtues of loyalty, responsibility, reliability, and humanity, still relevant?
Do religion and spirituality have any role in this age of science and technology?
How can one garner the strengths of technology, without becoming a slave to it?
How can one strike a balance between work and life, and live life to the fullest extent? What is the worth of the support of family and friends, in this strife-filled arena of life?
Read on to know about these and much more...
For the storm-ravaged barge of life, tossed about by adversities, optimism is the buoy that will hold it anchored and safe... And love – charity, compassion, good-will and humaneness – is the Key to such Optimism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Notion Press
• Release date: Aug 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9789352062256

Book preview

Book

1. Why Love is Most Important

Iam pretty sure, most of you guys are pondering too much over the title of this book. Which love is this book talking about? Why such a complex title and so on… Love is another form of dedication, passion and consistent performance. The best technique to evaluate happiness is to understand the value of a situation and act upon it wisely. We can say that happiness is indirectly proportional to love. Happiness is not something we can buy, it has to be created. Love is not a relationship between nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by serenity of soul. Love is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of peace. Lasting love can come only to lovely people.

Diagram 1.1: Happiness calculation formula

As per the above diagram 1.1, if you want to become a most lovable person at the workplace/ within your family, you have to be very dedicated, passionate and consistent to create happiness in life with respect to the value of a situation. Every effort has a unique situational circumstance. Situational variables can exert powerful influences over human behaviour, more than what we recognize or acknowledge. Without love, money loses value. Love is more important than money. You work to provide for yourself and your family. Without love there is little to inspire you to work harder or to have nicer things. There is also no one to whom you can leave the things you have worked hard for in life, and you can’t take them with you when you pass away. I think that if you wish to live a truly happy life, it is more important to have love than a lot of money. Having the love of someone is very important, because humans are very sociable, and it is very important to have close relationships with people you can always turn to.

Value of situation broadly categorised in the following way:

Diagram 1.2: Types of VOS (Value of situation)

As per the diagram 1.2, every situation has its own importance, and value of situation can be categorised based on the necessity, and accordingly dedication, passion & consistency can be applied upon. You can’t give low importance to right dedication and vice-versa. The crux behind putting all these fundamental ingredients pictorially is to emphasize on the understanding of flow and its correlation. Have we determined whether there are any difficulties in achieving happiness? Absolutely – NOT. In short, our own mind-set does decide the path of happiness, with higher/medium/lower importance. We are the drivers of our own lives, until and unless there is something negative in our minds. Generally, our human mind prefers to think more instead of work more, and according to surveys 70% of people do think they are not happy in life, that’s a cause of ‘failure’. Thinking itself is an input of the required outcome.

Diagram 1.3: Failure controller

As shown in diagram 1.3, Accepting challenge and quickly understanding the value of a situation, surely makes the difference and ultimately leads to complete happiness. Always keep in mind, medium/high influence with respect to your consistent efforts will lead to ‘low risk’. You can easily evaluate yourself while accessing above failure controller in mathematical terms, based on the particular quadrant.

Quadrant (I) – Very low influence: If we are not aware about the surrounding culture and the requirements of society, then we should keep ourselves on this quadrant, which may definitely lead to high risk while looking forward to happiness in life. The bottom line is that we have to be very clear and respectful about our society along with the value of situation.

How to take ourselves out from this quadrant is a key here. All of us know the root cause of our low influence with respect to the ‘situation’. Nothing is impossible in today’s world, if we do have appropriate control on our mind. Now, immediately your brain will trigger towards – How can we have control over the mind? Self-control defines the appropriate dedications/passion/consistency towards situation. Lot of improvement is required – when we find ourselves on this portion. Improvement can easily be done, after reading motivational and inspirational articles, and also after meeting our neighbours/friends while sharing our problems. Sharing problems will eventually solve the problems sometimes.

Quadrant (II) – Low influence: This is similar to the quadrant (I), there being not much difference between them. Generally impact of the risk is similar, and scope of improvement is always there to refresh the quadrant (I) parameters. Hiding the problem is itself the ‘birth of disaster’. If you want to keep happiness in your life, you have to work towards it. Don’t hope – work for it.

Quadrant (III) & (IV) – Medium/High influence: If you are able to understand the situation very quickly along with appropriate steps towards the situation that has arisen, then you can put yourself on this quadrant. Low risk itself has low importance, but sometimes low risk also can convert into ‘high’ one, due to arrogance and ignorance of the right steps. As all of us know, failure is temporary and success is not final. Every human being has strengths and weaknesses; we should learn to accept our mistakes.

Why are love and happiness merged together? How do they correlate with each other?

The main reason behind the correlation between love and happiness is your dedication/passion and consistency to deal with value of situation. If you love to work upon something, then definitely happiness would be the resulting factor.

(L) Denotes – Life as well.

Lifetime latitude logically liaising, logically life leave longitude. Long-lasting lesson laugh lesser lonely. Liaising logically likelihood learn, love life logically lifetime.

If we try to understand the formation of the word (LOVE), each letter describes a different intended meaning.

L - Loyalty

O - Optimism

V - Value

E - Energy

Energy which transmits the valuable and legal optimism known as ‘LOVE’.

L + E = Dedication (D)

Same as

O + V = Passion (P) and L+O+V+E = Consistency (C)

Perhaps the above mathematical calculations look pretty odd, but if you think very practically about these equations, the results would be different. I mean you can win a battle in case of the worst situation too. If we combine the D + P + C = Happiness, indirectly resulting dedication, passion and consistency points to love and interest. Nobody describes the value of happiness once he/she has gone through the legal track of life. If we love our job, if we love what we do, that’s a key of happiness as well. Initial level of interest defines the intensity of continued efforts to achieve happiness. We should learn from the success story of the person and ‘failure’ as well. Life is very easy, but surrounding ingredients can make it complicated some times. We have to learn to find out which those surrounding ingredients are. If we are able to find out, it means we are near to ‘happiness’ and this is called intelligence as well.

In another way, we can try to understand the formation of the word (HAPPINESS), where each letter describes a different intended meaning.

H - Honesty

A - Ability

P - Prosperity

P - Positivity

I - Intellectuality

N - Nobility

E - Enormity

S - Security

S - Sensitivity

The reason for writing such elaborate meanings of valuable words is to describe to you the actual correlation of daily routine. If you think on each and every letter as described above, you will crack the encrypted puzzle in the upcoming days in life. Honesty is a primary attribute for creating happiness, and then ability comes into the picture to drive further. Prosperity navigates towards positivity, and positivity leads to intellectuality which creates nobility. Enormity requires some kind of security while navigating towards sensitivity. The foundation elements for a balanced life are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty. We have to stand up for what we believe in, even when we might not be popular for it. Honesty starts with being ourselves and true to what we are and what we believe in, and that may not always be popular, but it will always let you follow your dreams and your heart with the right amount of confidence. #Honesty.

The worth of life lies not in how much wealth we acquire, but in our integrity and our ability to affect people around positively- that is known as ability.

I believe that the biggest problem and blunder that humanity faces is ego sensitivity in finding out whether one is right or wrong, and in identifying what one’s strengths and weaknesses are. #Sensitivity.

Locking something important is a key; Growth demands a temporary surrender of security. It may mean giving up familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, and relationships that have lost their meaning. #Security

Diagram 1.4: Happiness absolute model

Happiness absolute model (Diagram: 1.4), will give you the basic navigation techniques to create happiness. All the above mentioned nine inputs are clearly depicting the world of happiness and how to traverse accordingly. We can realize now why love is more important to create happiness in life.

Mr. Sachin Tendulkar is the best example of the situation described above. If he hadn’t loved to play cricket, then he wouldn’t be able to achieve the Master Blaster title. His loving desire towards cricket, created permanent happiness in his life, and that’s why we love him and Indian cricket. As all of us know, there were many people involved behind Mr. Tendulkar’s success, as he took every difficulty as a lesson and worked towards it to convert into happiness. The same story is true of many actors, athletes and cricketers. If we can’t love our profession, then definitely we can’t create happiness while handling challenges in our profession.

There are no shortcuts to success/happiness, also any boundaries for learning. If we are investing the right amount of efforts behind the targeted situation, definitely the outcome would be as expected, only point being ‘what is the value of situation (refer diagram 1.2 – types of VOS)’. Value of situation would be volatile sometimes, but dedication and efforts should be very pure. The diagram 1.5 below represents the nature of situation, and how we have to prioritize with respect to VOS (value of situation). Very low importance/low importance should be volatile based on our expected outcome. The point here is to maintain the high & medium importance value of situation according to non-volatile nature of VOS.

Diagram 1.5: Nature of Situation

Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books. One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon, instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming just outside in our daily routine. When we love something with the right dedication and efforts, there would be 90% chances to reach the targeted level. Even with all our technology and the inventions that make modern life so much easier than it once was, it takes just one big natural disaster to wipe all that away and remind us that, here on Earth, we’re still at the mercy of nature and situations. Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy - your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. It takes you to a place within yourself.

2. Types of Love

Every entity on this earth is precious and has its own importance. When we say entity in this terminology, it could be individual, object or thing. Generally, love creates happiness as described in Chapter 1. When we love something with right dedication and efforts, there would be 90% chances to reach at targeted level. Only matter is ‘what type of VOS it is’? – Whether it is of high importance with high influence, or medium importance with medium influence. I would like to elaborate more on types of love and why these are categorized in the following way.

Diagram 2.1: Work flow of Risk Controller

As per the diagram 2.1 (Work flow of RC), love has been categorised into conditional, unconditional and neutral, whereas every ‘value of situation’ is taking inputs from efforts of individual. Conditional is when you set a condition to achieve VOS. In this, condition means terms which are directly proportional to understanding. If conditions are not good and are a bit confusing, then there would be a chance of ‘high risk’, and this high risk leads to failure. My recommendation would be to set conditions/terms while loving something - for example, Why do you love something? Whether it would be worth for you? Is it a waste of time or good value for time? What would be the success ratio and how it would be achievable? A professional engineer doing a job without setting up the conditions would be taking a very high risk generating approach. If a person joined a company at ‘XYZ’ designation, and he/she feels that it is not worth for career prospects, then based on the assumption, the person has to setup a condition to control over VOS. Now point is – how to control over the VOS, if input is equal to conditional efforts. Life without VISON is nothing but a TELEVISION. When we have to set a target to achieve something in life with respect to VOS, then that is known as conditional efforts. Conditional efforts are very much practically proven and acceptable if we consider any difficult situation in life. In short, vision and objective should be very clear while working towards something. Conditional efforts are nothing but ‘low risk’ and ‘high influence’ VOS.

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own… Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy. Courtesy – Robert A. Heinlein

Diagram 2.2: Roller of Conditional RC

As per the diagram 2.2, it clearly states that the nature of conditional VOS leads towards low risk with high influence, whereas these are two indirect outcomes. Love between two adults is always conditional, same as applicable in our profession also. Love between employee and employer is always conditional with respect to the salary increment based on performance. If a person is doing hard work for something, it’s obvious that the human mind does expect the result of hard work – which is conditional. Conditional indicates level of maturity and sensible skill to deal with dilemma. While the Bible teaches that immortality of the soul is conditional upon doing good, it makes no distinction in respect of the spirit. Love was always conditional; anyone who thought otherwise was a fool. All of us live in a practical world, where we should be less superstitious and work with a result oriented approach. If all of us work with ‘result oriented approach’, there are 90% chances of creating happiness among all VOS.

The infinite, absolute character of Virtue has passed into a finite, conditional one; it is no longer a worship of the beautiful and good, but a calculation of the Profitable outcome.

Unconditional efforts are nothing but ‘high risk’ and ‘low influence’ VOS. This is very much theoretical and unacceptable. If we do not have vision in life and we are working on something, it means we are making our journey difficult. Real happiness is directly proportional to the individual efforts.

Diagram 2.3: Roller of Unconditional RC

As per the diagram 2.3, it clearly states that, the nature of unconditional VOS leads towards high risk with low influence, whereas these are two indirect outcomes. If a person has been doing hard work for something, it’s obvious that the human mind does expect the results of hard work – which is conditional. Unconditional indicates level of low priority and less sensible mentality. This type of unconditional VOS is not capable of activating the trend of happiness in life. The better way is to stick with 2.2(roller of conditional RC), which will be an effective and result oriented methodology.

Diagram 2.4: Roller of Neutral RC

As per the diagram 2.4, it clearly states that, the nature of unconditional VOS leads towards No risk with No influence, nothing but the middle of the road without having any directional approach. This type of VOS is very harmful and a complete waste of time. If the value of risk is ‘zero’, with ‘zero’ influence, it means it is pointing towards the ‘dispassionate’ track. Every path in life is difficult and different and it’s our choice whether to make it easier or more complicated.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. Courtesy – Desmond Tutu

In life always do remember to help as many people as possible with correct and legal directional approaches. That’s the main intention of life – to gain more confidence, inner and outer.

3. Are Emotions Most Important In Love?

An emotion plays the vital role in building any kind of relationship. An emotion is a highly focused and critical success factor for every human being. Emotions seem to rule our daily lives. We make decisions based on whether we are happy, angry, sad, bored, or frustrated. We choose activities and hobbies based on the emotions they evoke. An emotion is a complex psychological state that involves three distinct components: a subjective experience, a physiological response, and a behavioral response.

Diagram 3.1: Emotion coaster

As per the diagram 3.1, each component of emotion has its own importance and value of situation. While experts believe that there are a number of basic universal emotions that are experienced by people all over the world regardless of background or culture, researchers also believe that the experience of emotion can be highly influenced, which is known as subjective. While we might have broad labels for certain emotions such as ‘angry,’ ‘sad,’ or ‘happy,’ your own unique experience of these emotions is probably much more multi-dimensional. Consider anger. Is all anger the same? Your own experience might range from mild annoyance to blinding rage. We don’t always experience ‘pure’ forms of each emotion.

As regards physiological response, mixed emotions over different events or situations in our lives are common. When faced with starting a new job, you might feel both excited and nervous. Getting married or having a child might be marked by a wide variety of emotions ranging from joy to anxiety. These emotions might occur simultaneously, or you might feel them one after another.

The final component (Behavioural response) is perhaps one that you are most familiar with – the actual expression of emotion. We spend a significant amount of time interpreting the emotional expressions of the people around us. Our ability to accurately understand these expressions is tied to what psychologists call emotional intelligence and these expressions play a major part in our overall body language. Researchers believe that many expressions are universal, such as a smile indicating happiness or pleasure, or a frown indicating sadness or displeasure. Cultural rules also play an important role in how we express and interpret emotions.

In everyday language, people often use the terms ‘emotions’ and ‘moods’ interchangeably, but psychologists actually make distinctions between the two. How do they differ? An emotion is normally quite short-lived, but intense. Emotions are also likely to have a definite and identifiable cause. For example, after disagreeing with a friend over politics, you might feel angry for a short period of time. A mood on the other hand is usually much milder than an emotion, but longer-lasting. In many cases, it can be difficult to identify the specific cause of a mood. For example, you might find yourself feeling gloomy for several days without any clearly identifiable reason.

Principles of Emotion

As per the diagram 3.2, the major principles of motivation can be grouped into three main categories: physiological, neurological, and cognitive. Physiological principle suggests that responses within the body are responsible for emotions. Neurological principle proposes that activities within the brain lead to emotional responses. Finally, cognitive principle argues that thoughts and other mental activities play an essential role in the formation of emotions. Our correct principle of emotion will create happiness and love, choosing the right principle and the above described 3.1 coaster will be the master key here. As per the human mentality check-up survey, generally emotional people are pretty confident about their decisions. It clearly indicates that such kinds of people are most happy on this earth and are able to create happiness in the lives of others as well.

Emotion is nothing but another form of discipline and root of happiness. A smile on the face is a type of emotion, whereas even a ‘simple smile’ in a day kills many pains in others. Be a painkiller always in difficult times of life. It’s in our hands to make the right use of emotion at the right time for the right situation to cross the boundary happiness. That is why emotion is most important in love for creating happiness.

Diagram 3.2: Principle of emotion

A distinction can be made between emotional episodes and emotional dispositions. Emotional dispositions are also comparable to character traits, where someone may be said to be generally disposed to experiencing certain emotions. For example, an irritable person is generally disposed to feel irritation more easily or quickly than others do. Finally, some theorists place emotions within a more general category of affective states where affective states can also include emotion-related phenomena such as pleasure and pain, motivational states (for example, hunger or curiosity), moods, dispositions and traits.

Emotion – is nothing but ethical motion. The motion which gives indication about your ethics is known as emotion.

Let’s understand the deep formation of emotion, as described in following way.

E - Ethical

M - Motion

O - Organized

T - Tactically

I - Inside

O - Our

N - Nerves

Ethical Motion Organized Tactically Inside Our Nerves.

Each letter has a unique meaning and has distinct importance, depicting ingredients of ‘EMOTION’.

Being in accordance with the rules or standards for right conduct or practice, especially the standards of a profession… #Ethical.

The action or process of moving or of changing place or position/target…# Motion

Having taken something that is messy, chaotic, or disorderly, and rearranged it logically, into a structured or coherent layout, or into specific and/or defined groups… #Organized

Specific plan that is created to achieve a particular goal in life or in profession, etc… #Tactically

A position of power, trust, or familiarity… #Inside

Relating to or belonging to us which is made or done by us… #Our

One of the many thin parts of the body that control movement and feeling, by carrying messages between the brain and other parts of the body;courage that allows you to do something that is dangerous, difficult, or frightening. The attitude of someone who says or does things that make other people happy or angry/upset… #Nerves

Each of us is emotionally strong and weak too with regards to value of situation. Emotion can be varied depending on the nature of situation where it has high or low Importance. Sometimes our over enthusiastic behaviour can map to a wrong level of emotion, and that leads to disappointment. As per the below diagram 3.3, you can correlate the impact of various factors in the circle of emotion.

Diagram 3.3: Circle of emotion

Circle of emotion will give you a clear picture of the various levels of emotion - for example, optimism, love, anger, fear, sadness, etc., whereas the areas marked in dark shade indicate the most dangerous levels of emotion, such as loathing, grief, vigilance, etc.

Optimism and Love are the best levels of emotion across life and the most respectable qualities. In the above described diagram, best levels of emotions are categorized at the top level. Outer parts of emotions clearly indicate optimism, love, submission, aggressiveness. Choosing the right level of emotion is the master key to creating happiness in life. Happiness is not something ready made; it comes from your own actions. True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest for creating things anew. Try to make at least one person happy every day.

The classification of emotions has mainly been researched from two fundamental viewpoints.

Basic emotions are discrete and fundamentally different constructs.

Emotions can be characterized on a dimensional basis in groupings.

Basic emotions

Emotions can be grouped on a positive or negative basis: joy versus sadness; anger versus fear; trust versus distrust; and surprise versus anticipation. Some basic emotions can be modified to form complex emotions. Complex emotions could arise from cultural conditioning or association combined with basic emotions. Alternatively, similar to the way primary colours combine, primary emotions could blend to form the full spectrum of human emotional experience. For example, interpersonal anger and disgust could blend to form contempt. Relationships exist between basic emotions, resulting in positive or negative influences.

Multi-dimensional analysis

Two Dimensions of Emotion

Through the use of multidimensional scaling, psychologists can map out similar emotional experiences, which allow a visual depiction of the emotional distance between experiences. A further step can be taken by looking at the map’s dimensions of the emotional experiences. Emotional experiences are divided into two dimensions known as valence (how negative or positive the experience feels) and arousal (how energized or enervated the experience feels). These two dimensions can be depicted on a 2D coordinate map. This two-dimensional map was theorized to capture one important component of emotion called core affect. Core affect is not the only component to emotion, but gives the emotion its hedonic and felt energy.

The idea that core affect is but one component of the emotion led to a theory called psychological construction. According to this theory, an emotional episode consists of a set of components, each of which is an

on-going process and none of which is necessary or sufficient for the emotion to be initiated. The set of components is not fixed, either by human evolutionary history or by social norms and roles. Instead, the emotional episode is assembled at the moment of its occurrence to suit its specific circumstances. One implication is that all cases of an emotional episode, for example, fear, are not identical but instead bear a family resemblance to one another. Studies have shown that people with high emotional intelligence have greater mental health, exemplary job performance, and more potent leadership skills.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to recognize one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour. As per below described diagram 3.4, There are three models of EI. The ability model focuses on the individual’s ability to process emotional information and use it to navigate the social environment. The second one, Self-report model encompasses behavioural dispositions and self-perceived abilities and is measured through self-report. The final model, the tree structure model is a combination of both ability and self-report EI. It defines EI as an array of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance.

Diagram 3.4: Model of Emotional Intelligence (EI)

The ability-based model views emotions as useful sources of information that help one to make sense of and navigate the social environment. The model proposes that individuals vary in their ability to process information of an emotional nature and in their ability to relate emotional processing to a wider cognition. This ability is seen to manifest itself in certain adaptive behaviours. The model claims that EI includes four types of abilities:

Perceiving emotions: The ability to detect and decipher emotions in faces, pictures, voices, and cultural artefacts—including the ability to identify one’s own emotions. Perceiving emotions represents a basic aspect of emotional intelligence, as it makes all other processing of emotional information possible.

Using emotions: The ability to harness emotions to facilitate various cognitive activities, such as thinking and problem solving. The emotionally intelligent person can capitalize fully upon his or her changing moods in order to best fit the task at hand.

Understanding emotions: The ability to comprehend emotion language and to appreciate complicated relationships among emotions. For example, understanding emotions encompasses the ability to be sensitive to slight variations between emotions, and the ability to recognize and describe how emotions evolve over time.

Managing emotions: The ability to regulate emotions in both ourselves and in others. Therefore, the emotionally intelligent person can harness emotions, even negative ones, and manage them to achieve intended goals.

Ability model

Measures conformity, not ability.

Measures knowledge, not ability. Measures personality and general intelligence.

The self-report model views emotions as useful by testing a person’s abilities on each level of emotion. In lay terms, self-report EI refers to an individual’s self-perceptions of his emotional abilities. This definition of EI encompasses behavioural dispositions and self-perceived abilities and is measured by self-report, as opposed to the ability based model which refers to actual abilities, which have proven highly resistant to scientific measurement. This EI should be investigated within a personality framework. An alternative label for the same construct is emotional self-efficacy. The self-report EI model is general and subsumes the Goldman model explained as above. The conceptualization of EI as a personality self-report leads to a construct that lies outside the taxonomy of human cognitive ability. This is an important distinction in as much as it bears directly on the operationalization of the construct and the theories and hypotheses that are formulated about it.

Self-report Model

Measure susceptible to faking.

Measure predictive power unsubstantiated.

The tree structure model views emotions as focuses on EI as a wide array of competencies and skills that drive leadership performance. This model outlines five main EI constructs.

Self-awareness – the ability to know one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drivers, values and goals and recognize their impact on others while using gut feelings to guide decisions.

Self-regulation – involves controlling or redirecting one’s disruptive emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.

Social skill – managing relationships to move people in the desired direction

Empathy – considering other people’s feelings especially when making decisions

Motivation – being driven to achieve for the sake of achievement.

It includes a set of emotional competencies within each construct of EI. Emotional competencies are not innate talents, but rather, learned capabilities that must be worked on and can be developed to achieve outstanding performance. It posits that individuals are born with a general emotional intelligence that determines their potential for learning emotional competencies.

Tree structure model

Measures Social Skills

Measures expression of achievement

Measures Self-regulation

For leadership positions, emotional intelligence is more important than cognitive intelligence. People with emotional intelligence usually have a lot of cognitive intelligence, but that’s not always true the other way around. What matters is hard work, and emotional intelligence. Emotion is an asset, just like physical prowess, charisma, brains. The key with any gift is in the way that you use it. It doesn’t define you as a person. Rather, it’s an asset to be used judiciously and with an understanding of how it is just a small part of who you are.

4. Loyalty Can Make The Difference

Loyalty is another ingredient of Love and happiness. If you are loyal, it means no one can dare to steal the smile from your face. It has been practically proven and experienced by many of you. Don’t you remember those days when we used to prepare for exams during our school days, and sometimes we failed to achieve the expected marks? When we remember those days, and realise that we were loyal during our preparations for exams, then we would not be disappointed, as we were loyal.

Diagram 4.1: Loyalty matrix

As per diagram 4.1, the important factor is to decide about being loyal with whom, why, where, when and what.

When – To judge the situation to show our loyalty.

Why – We should be (loyal), but why, that also needs to be calculated.

Whom – To who is totally based on when and why. It is a tricky trigger point to decide who we should be loyal to.

Where – Circle of influence to decide, where we should be loyal based on VOS.

What – You can observe the impact of being loyal, while asking what.

Happiness is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence. Loyalty is faithfulness or devotion to a person, country, group, or cause. Philosophers disagree on what can be an object of loyalty as some argue that loyalty is strictly interpersonal and only another human being can be the object of loyalty. Loyalty and devotion lead to bravery. Bravery leads to the spirit of self-sacrifice. The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in the power of happiness. Honesty and loyalty are the two keys to success. If two people can be honest with each other about everything, that’s probably the biggest key to success. When people show loyalty to you, you take care of those who are with you. That’s how it goes with everything. If you have a small circle of friends, and one of those friends doesn’t stay loyal to you, that person won’t stay your friend for long.

Besides pride, loyalty, discipline, heart, and mind, confidence is the key to all the locks.

Loyalties differ in their bases, according to their foundations. They may be constructed upon the basis of unalterable facts that constitute a personal connection between the subject and the object of the loyalty, such as biological ties or place of birth (a notion of natural allegiance propounded by Socrates in his political theory). Alternatively, they may be constructed from personal choice and evaluation of criteria with a full degree of freedom. The degree of control that one has is not necessarily simple.

Loyalties differ in strength. They can range from supreme loyalties that override all other considerations, to