Making Enemies & Emotional Intelligence

Someone bought a car and another friend was congratulating them on social media and the following conversation ensued

Friend A – Congratulations girl, Soar on, More and more big wins

Friend B –Why do we celebrate liabilities in this part of the world.Especially very  costly liabilities  A car is just a tool  to move from point A to point B  . Yet we celebrate like we have achieved something great . Let’s stop this culture… Its not healthy

To which friend A replied;” Is it your liability ? Abeg when you acquire your own liabilities , please MOURN them . Thank you

It made me laugh but got me thinking about how important it is to have the right words at the right time .

It will be very difficult for the car owner to genuinely believe that friend B is happy about her progress and even if she may not see anything wrong with this ill-timed often repeated motivational talk, the seeds of doubt about the genuineness of the friendship is sown.

I think even the Bible admonishes that we should rejoice with those that rejoice and one sure way of making enemies is refusing to rejoice with those who are rejoicing and doing so openly.  That makes us so vulnerable to being tagged as jealous or enemies of progress

Another easy way to make enemies is to fail to empathize with those who are sad or in despair. Sometimes, people acquire  enemies by the things they said to a bereaved friend, colleague, neighbour or even church members. Silence, they say is golden and sometimes just being present is enough.

Someone I know,  let’s call her sister L related to me how her friend whom we will call Sister O suffered a miscarriage recently. She was so devastated and sought for comfort from someone she looked up to .Unfortunately the lady in question did more of boasting and rebuking. She told  Sister O  about all the times she was pregnant and how she always used to command her children in th womb and they cooperated. She told them when to be quiet because she wanted to pray  and do various things and they obeyed. You can imagine how sister O felt when she left . I am  reminded   of the friends of the Bible character. Job who came to see him after all his  ten children died in one day. They did such a bad job that he ended up calling them  miserable comforters .

Yesterday, a friend mentioned that  the results for a Dental  Llicensing Examination  was released and like any other examination, not everyone passed . However those  who passed were painting the town red on the class WhatsApp group, forgetting the  plight of their other  colleagues.

My friend sensed the rising tension  and  responded by writing  a  little piece on the WhatsApp group  in cognizance of the two different groups  of people in the class On the one hand, she congratulated all those who passed but she also acknowledged those who failed advising them not to define themselves by the recent failure. She reminded them all of the fact that on the journey to success, there would be occasions for failures /temporary setback. She also highlighted that she was able to relate perfectly with them as she had been in that position a few times too. She further  encouraged them to hang on because success was sure to come if they persisted. Her writeup changed the atmosphere and people began to respond positively.

Being emotionally aware of  other  people’s feelings will help us greatly in our relationships. People usually gravitate towards those who validate them.

While we perhaps may not have received any formal education on emotional intelligence, we all can learn to  improve this area of our lives.

We cannot possibly have everyone as our friends,  but being emotionally intelligent can help us to keep the ones we have without making  new enemies .