Social Intelligence
by Daniel Goleman
One
day, late for a meeting in midtown Manhattan, I was looking for a
shortcut. So I walked into an indoor atrium on the ground floor of a
skyscraper, planning to use an exit door I had spotted on the other side
that would give me a faster route through the block.
But as soon as I reached the building's lobby, with its banks of
elevators, a uniformed guard stormed over to me, waving his arms and
yelling, "You can't walk through here!"
"Why not?" I asked, puzzled.
"Private property! It's private property!" he shouted, visibly agitated.
I seemed to have inadvertently intruded into an unmarked security zone.
"It would help," I suggested in a shaky attempt to infuse a bit of
reasoning, "if there were a sign on the door saying 'Do Not Enter.' "
My remark made him even angrier. "Get out! Get out!" he screamed.
Unsettled, I hastily beat my retreat, his anger reverberating in my own gut for the next several blocks.
When someone dumps their toxic feelings on us – explodes in anger or
threats, shows disgust or contempt–they activate in us circuitry for
those very same distressing emotions. Their act has potent neurological
consequences: emotions are contagious. We "catch" strong emotions much
as we do a rhinovirus – and so can come down with the emotional
equivalent of a cold.
Every interaction has an emotional subtext. Along with whatever else we
are doing, we can make each other feel a little better, or even a lot
better, or a little worse – or a lot worse, as happened to me. Beyond
what transpires in the moment, we can retain a mood that stays with us
long after the direct encounter ends – an emotional afterglow (or
afterglower, in my case).
These tacit transactions drive what amounts to an emotional economy, the
net inner gains and losses we experience with a given person, or in a
given conversation, or on any given day. By evening the net balance of
feelings we have exchanged largely determines what kind of day – "good"
or "bad" – we feel we've had.
So I
haven't held a job since April of 2011 due to multiple health issues. I
currently draw disability but am having trouble finding money at the
end of the month so I decided I would look for a partime job.