Light your inner lamp

The word 'Deepavali' actually means a row or collection of lamps. Naturally, Diwali symbolises all that is bright, hapPY and colourful in life. The New Year that begins with the spark of . festivities automaticallY gets enriched by positive feelings, as welight the lamps symbolically with good will and good thoughts for everyone. JoyOUS moments of sharing and celebrating with family and friends infuse in us the rejuvenating emotions of love and affection, as we pledge to fill our hearts with the very best of positive strokes and eliminate even the faintest cloud of negativity.

Diwali also brings with it .good emotions from every direction and every person. We have
seen how emotions playa .powerful role in shaping our inner selves and empowering us with robust, inner potential and strength. That is why the importance of emotional intelligence and emotional competence have come to be accepted today in all walks of life~ whether at home, work or society at large.
If emotional intelligence is so important, one must be able to measure it accurately in order to understand it and improve upon it. But the problem is, unlike the standard cognitive intelligence which is measured by the IQ (Intelligence Quotient) test, the emotional quotient or EQ which measures emotional intelligence cannot be so easily calculated. The reason for this is that emotional situations are extremely complex and variable, depending on the socio-cultural profile of the person and the environment he / she lives in. According to some psychologists, it is simply not right or possible to calculate emotional intelligence in human beings, and so one should not even try it. But not every one agrees with this extreme view.
Several attempts have been made to calculate the Emotion'al Quotient with a rea~onable degree of accuracy, using the questionnaire method. We give below one such questionnaire which you can apply on yourself to check out your EQ. Be careful in interpreting your score against your own individual background because the answers given cannot be taken as rigid gospel truths, but only as pointers that need to be fine tuned to your own situation.

1. You're on an airplane that suddenly hits extremely bad turbulence and begins
rocking from side to side. What dQ you do?
a. Continue to read your book or magazine, or watch the movie, paying little attention to the turbulence.
b. Become vigilant for an emergency,' carefully monitoring the stewardesses and reading the
emergency instructions card.
c. A little of both a and b.
d. Not sure - never noticed.

2.You've taken a group of 4-year-olds to the park, and one of them starts crying
because the others won't play with her. What do you do?
a. Stay out of it -let the kids deal with it.on their own.
b. Talk to her and help her figure ou't ways to get
the other kids to play with her. c. Tell her in a kind voice not to cry. d. Try to distract the crying girl by showing her some other things she could play with.

3.Assume you're a college student who had hope~ to get an A in a course, but
you have just found out you got a C- on the midterm. What do you do?
a. Sketch out a specific plan for ways to improve
you grade and resolve to follow through on your plans.
b. Resolve to do better in the future.
c. Tell yourself it really doesn't matter much how you do in the course, and concentrate instead on other classes where your grades are higher.
d. Go to see the professor and try to talk him into giving you a better grade.

4.Imagine you're an insurance salesman calling prospec,tive clients. Fifteen
people in a row have closed the door on you, and you're getting discouraged. What do you do?
a. Call it a day and hope you have tomorrow.
b. Assess qualities in yourself undermining your ability to m
c. Try something new in the nex plugging away.
d. Consider another line of work.

5.You're a manager in an organization with diverse groups of people and you are
trying to encourage respect for persons of different linguistic and ethnic backgrounds. One morning, you overhear someone telling an ethnic joke. What do you do?
a. Ignore it - it's only a joke.
b. Call the person into your office for a reprimand.
c. Speak up on the spot, saying that such jokes are inappropriate and will not be tolerated in your organization.
d. Suggest to the person telling the joke he go through a counseling session.

6.You're trying to calm down a friend who
. has worked himself up into a fury at po driver in ,another car who' has cut dangerously close in front of him. What do you do?
a. Tell him to forget it - he's okay now and it's no big deal.
b. Put on one of his favorite tapes and try to distract him.
c. Join him in putting down the, other driver, as a show of rapport.
d. Tell him about a time something like this happened to you and how you felt as mad as he does now, but then you saw the other driver was on the way to a hospital emergency room.

7.You and your spouse have gotten into an argument that has escalated into a shouting match; you're both upset and, in the heat of anger, making personal attacks you don't really mean. What's the best thing to do?
,a. Take a 20-minute break and then continue the discussion.
b. Just stop the argument - go silent, no matter what your spouse says. Say you're sorry and ask your spouse to ologize, too.or a moment, collect your thoughts, then our side of the case as precisely as you

9.Your 4-year-old son is extremely timid,
and has been hypersensitive about ¬
and a bit fearful of - new places and people virtually since. he was born. What do you do?
a. Accept that he has a shy temperament and think of ways to shelter him from situations that would upset him.
b. Take him to a child psychiatrist for help.
c. Purposely expose hirri to lots of new people and places so he can get over his fear. .
d. Engineer an ongoing series of challenging but manageable experiences that will teach him he .
can handle new people and places.

10.For years you've been wanting to get back to learning to playa musical
instrument you tried in childhood, and now, just for fun, you've finally gotten around to starting. You want to make the most effective use of your time. What do you do?
a. Hold yourself to a strict practice time each day. b. Choose pieces that stretch your abilities a bit. c. Practice only when you're really in the mood.
d. Pick pieces that are far beyond your ability, but that you can master with diligent effort.