There’s always at least one alternative interpretation to events and stories of a philosophy book or a psychology book. I mean a book like “Emotional Intelligence”. I wonder what will happen if the author change his angle a little bit and add the cultural and ethnic differences in his interpretation of emotional intelligence. For example, as an Asian immigrant, my view of being shy and being passive in social situations is very different from the author. I can’t even remember one peer being classified as “shy” growing up from kindergarten to college; I don’t know even one person who’s not talking as much as others, not socializing in occasions where he or she should, or not interacting with others under those circumstances where she is supposed to. On the other hand, I really know several people, at least several in each of my classes, who like to talk, who’s outgoing, who hang out all the time. Those extroverts are very conspicuous, but the rest of us, at least according to my limited observation power, are about the same. This is why I’m a little surprised when the author says that the shy people are identified from a very young age and they are this way their whole life. Probably in the author’s familial culture and research environment, such shyness is more exposed than the place where I grew up.
Just like those other readers, I started this book to learn something about emotional intelligence which I can relate to my own life, which I can learn to better handle situations in my own life. However that’s not the direction of this book. The author is more concerned about troubled children living in broken families. Well, I haven’t been that way. I am a sloth from a stable background without much grievances against anything–I hope this is not because I am too lazy to notice anything.
Haoyan Do 