Emotional Intelligence

Anyone can become angry —that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way —this is not easy.
ARISTOTLE, The Nicomachean Ethics

The prefrontal cortex is the brain region responsible for working memory.17 But circuits from the limbic brain to the prefrontal lobes mean that the signals of strong emotion—anxiety, anger, and the like—can create neural static, sabotaging the ability of the prefrontal lobe to maintain working memory. That is why when we are emotionally upset we say we "just can't think straight"—and why continual emotional distress can create deficits in a child's intellectual abilities, crippling the capacity to learn.

"to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way."

Just as the mode of the rational mind is words, the mode of the emotions is nonverbal. Indeed, when a person's words disagree with what is conveyed via his tone of voice, gesture, or other nonverbal channel, the emotional truth is in how he says something rather than in what he says.

People seem to concentrate best when the demands on them are a bit greater than usual, and they are able to give more than usual. If there is too little demand on them, people are bored. If there is too much for them to handle, they get anxious. Flow occurs in that delicate zone between boredom and anxiety

It is with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

for any given emotion people can differ in how easily it triggers, how long it lasts, how intense it becomes.

Anyone can become angry —that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way —this is not easy

Managing emotions. Handling feelings so they are appropriate is an ability that builds on self-awareness.

Optimism, like hope, means having a strong expectation that, in general, things will turn out all right in life, despite setbacks and frustrations.