What’s in it for me? Set off on the path toward emotional maturity.
There’s no doubt about it: education is a major focus of modern societies.
Children spend at least 10 years of their lives in school.
They pack their brains with information about cloud formations, tectonic plates, and irregular verb conjugations in French.
But something else is conspicuously absent from the modern education system: emotional intelligence.
How much does a recent high school or college graduate know about communicating with others, coping with anger, or navigating relationships?
Likely, not very much.
That’s because we often rely on life’s challenging moments and painful experiences to teach us emotional competence.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Let these blinks serve as a few lessons in your emotional education.
Please note that blink 7 contains some frank observations about sexual intercourse.
In these blinks, you’ll learn where many of our emotional issues originate; why everything we think about love is wrong; and how art can be a great friend.
We spend every day inside our minds.
Despite this, we’re woefully self-ignorant.
How many times have we felt irritable, guilty, or furious without being able to pinpoint the root cause?
Our current emotional patterns stem from childhood experiences.
We compulsively destroy salvageable relationships, but we can’t explain why.
And many of us choose a profession without knowing if we’re truly suited for it.
Our minds are constantly forgetting things, obsessing, and otherwise deceiving us.
We feel as if we’re reacting to each situation in isolation, as it unfolds.
But in fact, our reactions to the present are heavily influenced by the past – especially by our childhoods.
The key message here is: Our current emotional patterns stem from childhood experiences.
One of the most well-known psychological examinations is called the Rorschach test.
This is the famous test that asks us to look at an inkblot and describe the first thing we see.
Rorschach’s images don’t actually depict anything specific.
Instead, what we see in them is highly connected to emotions and experiences from childhood.
A woman raised in a kind, forgiving environment might see a particular inkblot as an animal with floppy ears.
But a man raised by a domineering parent might see the same image as a giant, powerful figure poised to attack.
Our childhoods have an indelible influence on our current emotions.
Even if we’re raised in a caring environment, our intense vulnerabilities as children subject us to psychological injuries that stay with us in adulthood.
That’s not surprising, considering just how long humans spend in childhood.
A foal stands up unaided 30 minutes after being born, but the average person will have depended on their parents for 25,000 hours by the age of 18.
It takes a long time before we can cross the street, put on a coat, or write our names on our own.
Not only are we physically limited as children, but we’re emotionally underdeveloped.
We rarely understand the origins of our own sadness or anger – let alone other people’s emotions.
So, if we hear our parents screaming in the kitchen, we assume they despise each other.
We don’t understand that arguments can be part of a healthy relationship.
Similarly, we’re deeply influenced by our parents’ attitudes growing up.
A dismissive parenting style may lead to emotional avoidance.
A constantly busy parent may inspire attention-seeking behavior.
As adults, these seem like minor starting points.
But from these rudimentary experiences stem major consequences.
The emotional imbalances we experience in adulthood bear the distinctive marks of childhood.
Emotional maturity requires us to analyze our past experiences.
But it’s hard to pinpoint the origins of those imbalances.
Because the origins of our present emotions are unclear and invisible, we don’t always receive the sympathy we might deserve from others.
A friend might judge us to be spineless or weak.
But what they don’t understand is that we might have developed those qualities in response to a parent’s bullying, competitive behavior growing up.
We are loath to admit, or even remember, what caused our emotional wounds.
It can feel humiliating to acknowledge how childhood experiences have powerfully influenced our adult behaviors.
We prefer to view the past with happy nostalgia rather than to challenge it.
But to understand our own shortcomings, that’s exactly what we must do.
The key message here is: Emotional maturity requires us to analyze our past experiences.
No one has experienced an emotionally healthy childhood in every respect.
But it’s helpful to understand in what ways your situation was especially healthy or unhealthy.
To start, ask yourself these questions: Did I have a caregiver who consistently sacrificed their needs for mine?
Did my parents generally refrain from judging me in a negative light?
Did they demand that I always be a good boy or girl – or was I free, sometimes, to be bad?
Next, it’s time to assess how badly you were actually wounded by your past.
One way to do that is by examining where you stand in four key markers of emotional health.
The first is self-love.
This dictates how we feel about ourselves.
It’s also tied to self-worth, such as how likely we are to feel that we deserve poor treatment, or that everything is our fault.
The second is candor – the ability to accept that we’re flawed without needing to defend our normalcy.
The third is communication.
Communication allows us to put our feelings into words rather than internalizing the pain, lashing out, or giving others the silent treatment.
And finally, there’s trust.
How much risk are you willing to take?
Do you find the world to be a terrifying place – or does it feel relatively safe?
By evaluating these key markers, you get a sense of your wounds – and as a result, what sort of bandages you may need for them.
Throughout the ages, humans have invented countless tools to help overcome our deficiencies.
Therapy and meditation can help us cope with our emotions.
We use buckets to hold water that would otherwise drain through our hands.
We use knives to rip through food our teeth can’t cut.
And to heal our mental traumas?
To help us understand ourselves, learn how to trust others, and communicate better?
Well, for that, humans invented psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy allows us to reveal our strange impulses, desires, and fantasies without any fear of judgment.
Though we’re often advised to seek out the ear of a friend, social norms dictate that we shouldn’t bother them with too much of our own madness.
But in therapy, that’s actually encouraged!
Though it’s not the only salve for our emotional pain, therapy can change our lives for the better.
The key message here is: Therapy and meditation can help us cope with our emotions.
Even if the therapeutic process goes as successfully as possible, it’s not a cure for unhappiness.
Nothing truly is.
What therapy does provide, among other things, is a degree of freedom.
We might, for instance, feel that we must always be cynical or overly cheerful.
Therapy helps us see that this isn’t true – that we can be hopeful, afraid, or try a different profession.
It shows us that what we once thought was a personality flaw was really just a box we forced ourselves into long ago before we understood the world.
Therapy primarily helps us learn about ourselves in relation to the past.
But, when it comes to the present, there’s another worthwhile tool we can use: philosophical meditation.
Broadly, meditation is an attempt to empty the mind and focus on the present moment.
Philosophical meditation differs, though.
Instead of asking us to push aside our thoughts, it instructs us to untangle and understand them.
To that end, we must meditate on three big questions.
First: What might we be anxious or worried about right now?
Second: What might we be upset – that is, sad, regretful, or envious – about right now?
And third: What are we ambitious and excited about right now?
These questions help us make sense of our thoughts, which are often muddled and confusing.
We don’t normally acknowledge just how much we’re worried, upset, or excited about something.
So, a philosophical meditation is our chance to give those thoughts the space and recognition they deserve.
We must be kind and generous toward others.
Society celebrates winners – after all, who doesn’t love a good success story?
But when it comes to losers, most people aren’t quite sure what to say.
When we fail, we’re often met with a chorus of upbeat encouragement.
We’re told to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, be resilient, or bounce back.
But there are only so many times we can “try again.
” After years of failed campaigns, for instance, we may have to accept that our political career just isn’t going anywhere.
Modern meritocracies claim that we alone are responsible for our successes or failures – luck and circumstance supposedly play no role.
Unfortunately, this narrow-minded sentiment has caused a lot of undue stress and anxiety.
It’s time to adopt a more charitable and generous view.
The key message here is: We must be kind and generous toward others.
When we read novels about tragic figures like Hamlet, Antigone, or Anna Karenina, we feel a natural sympathy for the lead characters.
Their stories are all about terrible things happening to fundamentally good people.
They prove that failure can easily happen to anyone.
But we often fail to treat people in our everyday lives with the same generosity as these great literary figures.
We can change our behavior using the weakness of strength.
This theory interprets people’s flaws as the inevitable downsides of their great strengths.
Said differently, every strength has an accompanying weakness.
That could mean, for example, accepting a friend’s messy lifestyle because messiness is an inherent weakness of creativity.
Understanding the weakness of strength theory allows us to tolerate other people’s irritating characteristics, paving the way for kindness.
But when it comes to their actions, it’s necessary to be aware of their motives.
Despite how it may sometimes seem, people rarely act out of some commitment to pure evil.
It’s far more likely they’re responding to pain.
Think about it: we rarely feel the need to lash out when we’re content.
So, when being attacked by someone else, we have more reason to react with sympathy rather than anger or humiliation.
Our opponents aren’t strong or dominant – in fact, they’re at a moment of weakness.
It’s sometimes difficult to put into practice, but those who seek to harm us often deserve not our punishment .
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but our love.
Cultivate charm through warmth, politeness, and vulnerability.
How do you feel about people who are extremely polite?
Does politeness indicate that someone is kind and civilized?
Or does it conceal insincerity and ulterior motives?
Over the past two hundred or so years, society has been trending toward the latter attitude, preferring frankness over politeness.
But it may be time to switch that around.
The reality is that politeness is a sign of deep respect for other people’s emotions.
Polite people understand that not all of their thoughts or feelings are kind – so they don’t feel the need to give voice to all of them.
Politeness is a logical response to other people’s deep vulnerabilities.
It centers the virtue of kindness and contributes to our charm, a quality that endears us to others and helps us make friends.
The key message here is: Cultivate charm through warmth, politeness, and vulnerability.
Even if we follow every rule of etiquette, we still risk coming across as cold or aloof.
So, how do we avoid that?
The key is to apply what we know about ourselves to every interaction with others.
What does that mean exactly?
Acknowledge that there are times when we appear composed on the outside, but we’re seriously struggling on the inside.
To be a warmly polite person, assume the same is true for everyone else and make an effort to put them at ease.
Ask your guest if she needs another cushion because she’s been on her feet all day.
Or offer to dance to an unpopular song with your friend because he likes it.
A warm person helps others feel a little less lonely.
But being cold isn’t the only barrier to exuding charm – so, too, is shyness.
Shyness may seem like an innate part of our personalities.
But it actually stems from a feeling that we’re somehow different from everyone else.
While that may be true in some respects, there are characteristics we’ll always share with every other human on the planet: we’ve all loved, we’ve all felt anxiety, and we’ve all had problems.
The good news is that admitting those problems can, in fact, be very endearing.
Endlessly discussing our successes and strengths is not very charming.
But confessing our vulnerabilities – how sad we are, how boring our day was, how normal our sex life is – actually makes others warm to us.
Why?
Because it’s deeply reassuring to know that we’re having just as difficult a time being alive as they are.
The modern concept of love, which comes from Romanticism, is deeply misguided.
The ideological movement known as Romanticism began in Europe in 1750 and has since pervaded countless aspects of our lives.
Its philosophy emphasizes emotion over rational thought and spontaneity over caution.
When it comes to our love lives, Romanticism has been a misguiding light.
It makes us believe that we’ll be pulled to our soulmate by an overwhelming instinct rather than practical considerations.
It claims that marriage can be as exciting as a love affair.
And it declares that true love means delighting in our partner’s every facet without complaint.
The problem?
These claims aren’t grounded in reality.
Even worse?
They have a devastating impact on our relationships.
The key message here is: The modern concept of love, which comes from Romanticism, is deeply misguided.
Romanticism has corrupted love and caused us to chase an impossible fantasy.
But we may be able to fix that problem with the Classical view, a more pragmatic and emotionally mature take on relationships.
The Classical view encourages us to de-emphasize immediate, instinctual attraction.
Why?
Because that type of love is usually based on misguided romantic ideas we developed in childhood.
The Romantic view may subconsciously lead us to seek a partner who will abandon, humiliate, or neglect us in the ways our parents did.
Instead, we should choose partners based on practical considerations, like economic status or attitude toward cleanliness.
Compatibility isn’t just about attraction; it’s also about whether you both agree on how to clean the kitchen floor.
And once we’ve found a partner, the Classical view doesn’t ask us to love every aspect of them, like Romanticism does.
Instead, it’s the opposite: accept that both we and our partners can be hellishly difficult to live with.
Now, that may sound harsh.
No one wants to believe they have terrible habits or can be untidy.
But it’s the people who can’t admit their flaws who are usually the most insufferable of all.
By accepting our shortcomings with grace and humor, we actually make ourselves easier to live with.
Similarly, we should acknowledge our partners’ flaws rather than deny them.
What matters is to understand why they’re flawed.
Their incessant financial worries could have been sparked by a parent who struggled with economic consistency.
Or, their untidiness could’ve started as a rebellion against an overly strict parent.
As it is with love, Romanticism is deeply wrong about sex, as we’ll see in the next blink.
Relationship problems often stem from emotional disconnect.
Thanks to Romanticism, we view sex as the ultimate expression of admiration.
Frequent, satisfying sex is the hallmark of a healthy relationship, but we shouldn’t ask for anything too rough or risqué.
And once we find a partner, we’re expected to never be sexually attracted to another person.
But none of these things are true.
It’s uncomfortable to admit, but it’s rare to maintain sexual interest in just one person forever.
It’s also possible to love someone and still want to have sex with a stranger.
And we can be kind in our everyday lives and yet still want to have rough sex.
At its core, sex is a quest for emotional intimacy and connection.
But thanks to Romanticism and its misguided notions, it’s also frequently the crux of many relationship issues.
The key message here is: Relationship problems often stem from emotional disconnect.
Sex – or lack thereof – can cause a variety of problems in relationships, but let’s consider just one for now: the love affair.
We tend to view love affairs as the ultimate betrayal – the cheater is a monster who can’t control her libido, and her partner is an innocent saint.
But how accurate is that?
Affairs frequently represent a desire for connection, not sex.
And though we often think of affairs as beginning when our partner meets an attractive stranger or flirts with a coworker, affairs usually originate long before that first meeting.
All kinds of behaviors can lay the groundwork for emotional disconnect – and, eventually, a possible affair.
Perhaps we embarrassed our partner in public one too many times.
Or, we repeatedly spurned her affections.
Maybe we too often chose work over quality time with him.
These little things, which may seem minor on their own, can eventually pile up until our partner feels the need to seek love and affection elsewhere.
So, how do we prevent love affairs from happening in the first place?
The key is to keep resentment and loneliness at bay.
To do this, regularly discuss frustrations, disappointments, and desires as they come up.
Don’t let them fester.
Kick off the discussion with prompts like, “I sometimes feel frustrated with you when .
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.
” or “What I’d love you to appreciate about me is .
.
.
.
” These discussions are bound to be uncomfortable and may even feel accusatory.
But they also provide a vital opportunity to level fair criticisms and have our feelings be heard.
Consumer economies aren’t designed to fulfill us – and that’s OK.
For the overwhelming majority of human history, people didn’t have much.
They owned the clothes on their backs and a few items for the home.
Almost everyone was poor, and global GDP stayed consistently low.
Things took a turn, however, in 1800.
Suddenly, technological and economic innovations meant that economies could expand and wages could increase.
Families had extra wealth to spend on unimaginable luxuries like combs, mirrors, and spare underwear.
Our societies and economies quickly transformed into the consumerist and capitalistic iterations we know today.
But while capitalism has been excellent at fulfilling our basic needs, it certainly hasn’t made us happy.
The key message here is: Consumer economies aren’t designed to fulfill us – and that’s OK.
A number of things are frustrating about the way we approach work in today’s day and age.
One of them is that modern economies are based on specialization.
This means that labor is divided so that each person focuses on one very narrow task.
As a result, we learn to be very good at doing that one specific thing.
The issue is that we end up using just one of our myriad talents.
Specialization makes us wealthy, but it restricts us from expressing all parts of ourselves or exploring every potential career.
What should we do about this?
Unfortunately, there’s no easy cure.
There will always be parts of ourselves that remain unexamined, or that we’ve had to kill off for our careers.
It may not be perfect, but there are benefits to specialization.
It allows us to learn skills, like focus and compromise, and enables us to raise our children in a stable environment.
There may not be a way to solve the woes of specialization, but there may be a better way forward for capitalism itself.
Some people believe that capitalism has reached its natural endpoint and should be abandoned.
But there’s an alternative solution: What if we could radically expand capitalism?
What if we could reshape it so that it fulfills not just our basic needs for food, water, shelter, and the like, but also our needs for friendship, belonging, and autonomy?
Instead of simply offering another perfume scent, corporations could serve our higher needs, like forming communities, raising children, and finding calm.
It’s unclear what these businesses would actually look like – but it’s the direction we should head in.
We can find solace in art and nature.
Anxiety – it’s a state of mind referred to as a sickness, a weakness, or an error.
But in reality, it’s none of those things.
Anxiety, in fact, is our fundamental state of being.
That might seem a bit surprising at first, but it makes a lot of sense when we consider how intensely vulnerable humans are, both mentally and physically.
Our bodies consist of organs, bones, and tissues that one day decide to give up on us.
Our societies are restless and competitive, overwhelming us at every turn.
And when we need comfort in all of this, we can only turn to others who are as vulnerable and unreliable as we are.
So, what do we do about these conundrums?
How do we find some solace in the vortex of anxiety?
The key message here is: We can find solace in art and nature.
Cultural norms pressure us into being upbeat at all times.
We aren’t allowed to reveal the extent of our suffering, which only exacerbates the problem by making us feel abnormal.
Art, by contrast, is a safe haven in which our sorrows can be fully recognized.
Whether it’s the tragedies inherent in love, poverty, or discrimination, art is very familiar with what it means to suffer.
In the subjects we read about or gaze upon, we find a certain kind of friendship.
Think about it – in a friend, we look for someone who can listen to us and make us feel understood.
Well, the imaginary friends we find in art may not be able to communicate back with us, but they help us see that our feelings aren’t our burden alone.
Like art, nature too can ease our suffering – though in a somewhat paradoxical way.
Nature reminds us of the inevitable; everything and everyone is subject to the same rules of nature.
All of us experience the process of growing, maturing, struggling, and eventually dying.
And when we contemplate something much larger than ourselves, like nature, we’re also faced with the reality of how little we matter in the grand scheme of things.
When we gaze upon a perfect azure sky or the sun’s rays shining out between two mountain peaks, our minor, petty concerns melt away.
We recognize that, ultimately, we and our problems aren’t really all that important – and knowing this counteracts anxiety, sparking an extraordinary calm.
Final summary
The key message in these blinks: School fails to teach us about our emotions, leaving us helpless in the face of life’s greatest challenges.
To be emotionally mature and intelligent, we must examine our pasts, digging for the origins of our current pain.
When it comes to our relationships, we must adopt an attitude of generosity and understanding.
And in work, we must be a little bit more compromising, accepting that our professional selves may never feel entirely fulfilled.
Actionable advice: Appreciate the cheap things in life.
Do you know what Christopher Columbus, Catherine the Great, and Charles II had in common?
A passion for pineapples.
In years past, pineapples were extremely expensive – just one fruit could sell for £5,000.
The high price tag inspired people to value the fruit to the utmost; they wrote poems about it and built structures in its honor.
Nowadays, a pineapple costs around £1.
50, and the low price tag has robbed the pineapple of its splendor.
It’s worthwhile to look for the beauty in even the cheapest things rather than letting prices dictate how much we value them.
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