Book Review

I spent the weekend writing a paper on the book Emotional Intelligence by Dr. Daniel Goleman. Goleman describes emotional intelligence as having the qualities of empathy, impulse control and optimism. He goes into detail about how these traits can greatly influence a person's success in life, and can be a greater determination of that success than intelligence. I found the book to be interesting, but I felt that it didn't offer much in the way of constructive suggestions on how to better your life. I felt that it spoke well about the attributes of a person high or low in emotional intelligence, but it didn't give the reader a way to assess where they currently stood or how they could grow. Maybe this is due to the fact that emotional intelligence is largely a qualitative rather than quantitative characteristic. I felt that emotional intelligence could be summed up fairly well by describing someone who is likeable - a person who gets along well with others, looks on the bright side of things, and is a generally happy, well-adjusted individual. While I definitely agree that these are an extremely important part of being successful in life, I think that changing these attributes in yourself would take more work than the average individual would care to put in. Especially someone who is inherently low in the characteristics already. Anyway, that is the gist of my paper, now I just have to get through my final tonight and I will be done with Interpersonal Relationships!