If there’s such a thing as a “belly-up” emotion, apathy fits the bill.
Apathy is actually defined as the absence of emotion.
It’s white noise. Dead air. You feel like a chunk of flavorless tofu. Not happy. Not sad. Not angry. And certainly not passionate.
You’ve probably heard people say they knew they were out of love when they no longer got angry. The relationship had flat-lined, love had disappeared, and it wasn’t worth the effort of anger anymore.
I am in a brand new phase of life. I never thought I would arrive here, but here I am.
I could have chosen to resist, to cling to the status quo, but instead, I’ve decided to embrace the change and set off on a new adventure.
As of last week when my youngest daughter graduated from high school, I am officially an empty nester. She heads off to college in a couple of months, and her departure marks the official end of my day-to-day parenting role. It is a bitter-sweet phase, one that is natural and expected but tinged with sadness nonetheless.
When I was in my twenties, I moved from Atlanta to New York City for my career.
Every day, I’d take the bus from my brownstone on the Upper West Side to my office in midtown Manhattan. Every day, the bus was jam-packed with people, and you were lucky if you were able to snag a seat.
Most of the time, I held on to a pole or the back of a seat, swinging around like a monkey (wearing high heels) every time the bus lurched to a stop. On one lucky day, I did get a seat near the front of the bus.
几分钟后,车停了,doors opened, and a hugely pregnant woman climbed on. The bus was packed as usual, and there were no available seats. I looked around at the dozen or so men seated nearby, and I swear to you, not one of them got up and offered their seat. Ultimately I offered mine.
Here’s an interesting science fact that immediately illustrates the benefits ofpositive thinking. You produce about 50,000 thoughts a day according to the National Science Foundation.
Of those 50,000, 70-80% of them are negative thoughts. That’s around 40,000 negative thoughts a day or 14,600,000 a year.
We are constantly simmering in a brew of negativity and need help with positive thinking.
Now maybe you are someone with a naturally sunny disposition. Let’s say you are 50% more positive than the average person. That’s still 20,000 negative thoughts a day — far more than you want or need.
There’s a reason we have so many negative thoughts. Research has proven that negative thoughts and emotions program your brain to take a specific action. These thoughts and emotions focus your mind and block out other thoughts so you can take the action.
Sometimes I just get worn out and stressed from thinking.
If I’m not paying attention, I tend to be an over-thinker — I ruminate and play out various scenarios in my head past the point of it being productive.
By not relaxing my mind I can get agitated and anxious, especially when an answer or solution doesn’t emerge from all of my thinking. In the past, I’d just plunge back in, believing I hadn’t given enough thought to the situation.
Of course, contemplating beyond what’s necessary for analysis and good judgment doesn’t usually offer enlightenment or peace of mind.
If you want to get ahead in your career, develop your leadership skills, and foster better teamwork, your first step should be improving your emotional intelligence.
In fact, manystudieshave confirmed that people with high emotional intelligence enjoy more career success and have a competitive advantage over those with lower EQ.
Back in 1995, psychologist and science journalistDaniel Golemanpublished a groundbreaking book callEmotional Intelligence.
The book was onThe New York Timesbestseller list for a year-and-a-half, with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide.
《哈佛商业Reviewcalled Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence “a revolutionary, paradigm-shattering idea.”
A guest post by Sarah Peterson
Have you ever had a dream, desire, or idea that you wrote off because you didn’t believe that you could accomplish it?
I have.
This was my mantra of early 2014:
“Nobody knows who I am. I don’t have an Ivy League education. I’ve never done anything exceptional. Who would care what I have to say?”
I had been blogging and building businesses online for three years, and I had just noticed a trend in the types of questions I was being asked.
When I was growing up, there was a dearth of reliable information on making healthy lifestyle choices.
If this information was available, it certainly didn’t hit the mainstream media, which at the time included the three major TV networks and the local newspaper. Everything we learned about healthy habits came from the family doctor or from health class in school.
School was where they served us “chicken fried” steak and bright pink hot dogs.