The emotionally intelligent person   –  knows that love is a skill, not a feeling, and will require trust, vulnerability, generosity, humor, sexual understanding, and selective resignation.

The emotionally intelligent person   –  awards themselves the time to determine what gives their working life meaning and has the confidence and tenacity to try to find an accommodation between their inner priorities and the demands of the world.

The emotionally intelligent person knows   –  how to hope and be grateful, while remaining steadfast before the essentially tragic structure of existence.

The emotionally intelligent person knows   –  that they will only ever be mentally healthy in a few areas and at certain moments, but is committed to fathoming their inadequacies and warning others of them in good time, with apology and charm…

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There are few catastrophes, in our own lives or in those of nations, that do not ultimately have their origins in emotional ignorance.

Excerpt The School of Life: An Emotional Education by Alain de Botton

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I recommend the The School of Life

The web site and organization is the brain child of Alain de Botton, a philosopher with a practical bent.  de Botton understands that philosophy can be a life-line in all kinds of life situations.  The web site offers insights such as I have shared above, as well as materials, and convocations in this country as well as in Europe where individuals can find resources in the life of mind for the life that we have together.

These words about the importance of  self care were given special weight after reading a snippit from a NIMH 2019 report: that 1 in 5 people in our country live with mental illness.  That’s 20 percent of us.  The illness range from mood disorders such as mild depression, or anxiety disorders.  Serious mental illness would be bipolar conditions, and other forms of disability that impair functioning.  I think that our modern form of life is stressful in the extreme to our organism.  Is it any wonder that we have the President that we have?  Or that news reports of shootings in public places are a daily occurrence?

You and I must take care of ourselves if we are to survive…….