Personal Perspectives Paper
The question is, what do I hope to obtain and how I believe an emotional intelligence course can help me in my daily life? I choose this class for 2 reasons. First I am a very emotional person, most of my decisions in life have been based on my emotions or gut feeling. I hope to shed some light on why and how these decisions are made. Secondly, I have to be honest and say this is my last class to complete my bachelor’s degree and of the choices this class sounded the most interesting.
I have never considered myself to be book smart or have a high IQ. Prior to coming back to school I had a ninth grade education. I left home at the age of 15 and became pregnant and had a child. I was a child raising a child. Looking back, there was nothing a book could have taught me in helping me to raise a child. What I accomplished was through emotional decisions, good, bad, or indifferent.
The text describes how the Asian culture believes if there children are not doing well in school that the solution is to study harder and longer to increase their IQ. This may help them pass a test or be great conversationalists, but will it help in dealing with everyday decisions in life? This is a question I hope to understand. (Goleman, 1995)
About 4 years ago, I had made the decision to enter a twelve step program for compulsive gambling. I had been in an 18 year marriage and was not happy. I met another person and made a decision to leave my marriage. This person was also married. Three months after I left, this other person decided he could not leave. I was devastated to say the least. For the next year, my life became unmanageable. I was unable to eat, sleep or concentrate. I experienced an emotional pain inside that I never knew existed. I found when sitting in front of a slot machine all this pain went away. For 5 months this worked until all the financial consequences and character defects came into play. To live a life of a compulsive gambler one...