From NurtureShock to Bright-sided, there are several new “anti-feel-good” books coming out, and they seem to be striking a chord with the current state of the world — and they are SO right. I mean enough of this talking about feelings. As Marge Simpson said (more or less), “take those negative feelings and push them down inside yourself until you’re standing on them!” What we need is more cold-hearted, analytic critics in the world, and clearly there’s good money to be made selling books that say so. Look, suppression has worked for generations — one only has to look objectively at the data. For example, our parents’ generation was raised to suppress feelings and avoid confrontation, and see how fabulously well they’ve done with the big challenges of life, such as holding onto ideals, building enduring marriages, leading businesses ethically, and reversing environmental depredations?
Oh, wait…
Look, as a society we’ve already tried the path of the supremacy of mean logic, and it hasn’t worked well.
In all seriousness, there is a piece of this “anti nurture” stance that I appreciate. JUST being positive doesn’t accomplish much. Overpraise – that sloppy, saccharin way some people interact (especially with kids) – has terrible detriment (though underpraise is probably worse).
My daughter, Emma, recently entered a garden in the County Fair. We were asking her how it went on the setup day, and what the adults there said to her. “They said I did a good job, but I didn’t know if that meant I really did a good job or not.”
“Why honey, what do you mean?”
“Well, you know, adults always say how great kids’ work is to make them feel good, so you don’t know if your work is really good or not. Except Suzanne [Emma’s fabulous and tough dance teacher], she hardly ever says something is good so when she does you know it’s really good.”
I also agree that JUST talking about feelings is pretty much useless. Again, treating feelings as an anathema is probably worse. But emotional intelligence requires more than “just talking,” it requires accuracy and insight. Emotional wisdom is an even higher standard – it takes going from awareness to action – which requires a robust mix of skills.
One of the key principles we teach people learning to use our emotional intelligence assessment is that BALANCE is at least as importance as overall competence. Someone who’s highly skilled in one competency can overuse that to their and others’ detriment – as I wrote a few days ago, even an incredible valuable asset like optimism can go awry when it’s used without the balancing effect of other strengths.
And, in the end, would you rather live in a world with well meaning happy people who are over-caring and over-praising, or in a world with steely-eyed grouchy “realists” who can’t be bothered to care and find praise a waste of oxygen? Maybe somewhere in between?