My mom always told me, “You might have a high IQ, but that matters little when you don’t improve your EQ and AQ.” Of course, the “high IQ” allowed me to infer that EQ was about emotions and me needing to know how to control them, but what was AQ? I’ve completely forgotten about it.
AQ stands for Adversity Quotient, or the ability to respond to change or challenges that come across one’s way. After searching for it just recently, I then realized how much I needed to improve this part of me more than I should try to understand my emotions which I already have a basic grasp of. Key word here is “grasp”. AQ also measures for how much one feels like they have control over a situation. This also shows how much one can handle any situation, with a low level AQ being more timid towards the situation, easily falling into despair upon one tiny thing failing in front of their very eyes, while a high level AQ is more resilient, adaptable to even the smallest of setbacks, and more positively aggressive with their methods, unafraid of the unknown. I would personally say how little AQ I have, with what, always being mad at everything not going my way, sad over the smallest of rejections, and highly disappointed when a certain professor whose veterancy allows him to flex over the system and make us do things against the curriculum. I’ll never understand office politics.
EQ stands for Emotional Quotient, or how a person assesses their emotions, effectively signifying whether one is in control of them or not. Over the course of my life, I’ve found that my opinion on emotions, much like a lot of my other opinions, have changed. In particular, I don’t feel that controlling my emotions should be my main priority. Rather, I should use my AQ to firstly assess the situation and then choose whether or not to apply or withhold my current emotional state to the parties involved. It’s isn’t much of “controlling” but more of pulling the lever of either emotion or no emotion. I absolutely still hate when I’m being repressed from expression. This expressive nature of mine is an identity I hold valuable to function as a person in society, and being unable to show how I feel about something kills me slowly inside. I would cite my case of a nearly year-old crush that had to take September before I finally did something about it. The feeling started happy, as with a lot of crushes do, but as time passed by, overthinking and everything included, I started to feel the anxiety. Something I thought I’d never feel given my personal evaluation of my mental fortitude. The latter half of my secret admiration was slowly consuming me internally that it felt lesser and lesser of a crush as more and more negativity crept towards me with each passing day. Well, at least I got that out of the way already. Point is, only futility is found when one is fixated on feeling.
Just let me feel, okay? XD
And the perfect song for me that fits this entire theme: Emoji by Pegboard Nerds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P14Qp4hqWFg
