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Kindle Notes & Highlights
The presence of indifference is a sign you’re on the wrong path. Fear means you’re trying to move toward something you love, but your old beliefs, or unhealed experiences, are getting in the way. (Or, rather, are being called up to be healed.)
They know that happiness is a choice, but they don’t feel the need to make it all the time.
They allow themselves time to process everything they are experiencing. They allow themselves to exist in their natural state. In that non-resistance, they find contentment.
They don’t allow their thoughts to be chosen for them.
they take inventory of their beliefs, reflect on their origins, and decide whether or not that frame of reference truly serves them.
They recognize that infallible composure is not emotional intelligence.
They don’t suppress it; they manage it effectively.
They know that a feeling will not kill them.
all things, even the worst, are transitory.
They don’t just become close friends with anyone.
They recognize true trust and intimacy as something you build, and something you want to be discerning with whom you share. But they’re not guarded or closed as they are simply mindful and aware of who they allow into their lives and hearts. They are kind to all, but truly open to few.
They don’t confuse a bad feeling for a bad life.
Emotionally intelligent people allow themselves their “bad” days. They let themselves be fully human. It’s in this non-resistance that they find the most peace of all.
I want to believe that you either love someone, in some way, forever, or you never really loved them at all. That once two reactive chemicals cross, both are changed.
I know love isn’t expendable.
Maybe it’s just that we’re all at the centers of our own little universes, and sometimes they overlap with other people’s, and that small bit of intersection leaves some part of it changed. The collision can wreck us, change us, shift us. Sometimes we merge into one, and other times we rescind because the comfort of losing what we thought we knew wins out. Either way, it’s inevitable that you expand. That you’re left knowing that much more about love and what it can do,
We find people irrationally compelling. We find souls made of the same stuff ours are.
We are all just waiting for another universe to collide with ours, to change what we can’t ourselves. It’s interesting how we realize the storm returns to calm, but we see the stars differently now, and we don’t know, and we can’t choose, whose wreckage can do that for us.
We all start as strangers, but we forget that we rarely choose who ends up a stranger, too.
Manners are cultural social intelligence.
While we want to be able to engage with people in a mutually comfortable way, we shouldn’t have to sacrifice genuine expression in favor of a polite nod or gracious smile. The two are not mutually exclusive.
People who are socially intelligent think and behave in a way that spans beyond what’s culturally acceptable at any given moment in time. They function in such a way that they are able to communicate with others and leave them feeling at ease without sacrificing who they are and what they want to say. This, of course, is the basis of connection, the thing on which our brains are wired to desire, and on which we personally thrive.
They do not try to elicit a strong emotional response from anyone they are holding a conversation with.
They do not speak in definitives about people, politics, or ideas.
To speak definitively about any one person or idea is to be blind to the multitude of perspectives that exist on it. It is the definition of closed-minded and short-sightedness.
They don’t immediately deny criticism, or have such a strong emotional reaction to it that they become unapproachable or unchangeable.
Socially intelligent people listen to criticism before
they respond to it—an immediate emotional response without thoughtful consideration is just defensiveness.
They do not confuse their opinion of someone for being ...
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They never overgeneralize other people through their behaviors.
choosing language that feels unthreatening to someone is the best way to get them to open up to your perspective and actually create the dialogue that will lead to the change you desire.
They speak with precision.
They say what they intend to say without skirting around the issue. They speak calmly, simply, concisely, and mindfully. They focus on communicating something, not just receiving a response from others.
They know how to practice healthy disassociation.
they know that the world does not revolve around them.
They are able to disassociate from their own projections and at least try to understand another person’s perspective without assuming it has everything to do with their own.
They do not try to inform people of their ignorance.
When you accuse someone of being wrong, you close them off to considering another perspective by heightening their defenses. If you first validate their stance (“That’s interesting, I never thought of it that way…”) and then present your own opinion (“Something I recently learned is this…”) and then let them know that they still hold their own power in the conversation by asking their opinion (“What do you think about that?”), you open them up to engaging in a conversation where both of you can learn rather than just defend.
They validate other people’s feelings.
To validate someone else’s feelings is to accept that they feel the way they do without trying to use logic to dismiss or deny or change their minds.
validating feelings is not the same thing as validating ideas. There are many ideas that do not need or deserve to be validated, but everyone’s feelings deserve to be seen and acknowledged and respected. Validating someone’s emotions is validating who they really are, even if you would respond differently.
They recognize that their “shadow selves” are the traits, behaviors, and patterns that aggravate them about others.
If you genuinely disliked something, you would simply disengage with it.
They do not argue with people who only want to win, not learn.
Socially intelligent people know that not everybody wants to communicate, learn, grow or connect—and so they do not try to force them.
They listen to hear, not respond.
They do not post anything online they would be embarrassed to show to a parent, explain to a child, or have an employer find.
posting anything that you are not confident to support means you are not being genuine to yourself
They do not consider themselves a judge of what’s true.
They don’t “poison the well” or fall for ad hominem fallacy to disprove a point.
