Unfortunately, I’m one of the least nonchalant people you’ll ever meet. I care a great deal about everything in my life. My relationships, goals, plans, how my future will look, how I interact with people, how people interact with me, about how I am perceived…I care deeply about all of it. I give everything my all and I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.
Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been sensitive and easily affected by small things. I cared about why my sister didn’t want to play with Cinderella while I played with Snow White and whether my friends wanted to play with me. I took to heart the jokes that were meant to poke fun at me and I’dd always overthink what I said to someone and their perception of me. As much as I’ld love to say that I’ve outgrown that—I’d be lying.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to appreciate this sensitive side. I believe that my heightened empathy and sensitivity comes from my high level of emotional intelligence, the ability to manage both your own emotions and understand the emotions of people around you. There are five key elements to EI: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. With high emotional intelligence you can’t manage other people’s behaviors or actions, but you possess a larger capacity to identify the motivators and emotions behind their actions. High emotional intelligence overlaps with strong interpersonal skills (mainly communication and conflict management) and leads to high levels of self-awareness. In turn, you can understand what they mean to do and why they are the way they are.
Possessing a high level of emotional intelligence is a double-edged sword. On one hand, I gain a deeper understanding and perception of people’s motivations and emotional intentions, so my emotional intelligence makes me a valuable friend and family member. However, on the other hand, I’m hyper-aware of how I’m perceived by other people. Without meaning to, I analyze other people’s actions, body language, tone, words, and where conversations are leading to, helping me to best grasp the situation.
Let’s say that I’m in a one-on-one conversation with someone. If we’re having a pleasant conversation, and then all of a sudden, they begin to do small things like shorten their sentences or look elsewhere—I analyze what I’ve said to try and understand where the downtick in attitude began. It may be minor, and they might’ve not even consciously changed, and it may really just not be that serious, but I catalog it nonetheless. Even if nothing inherently went wrong, I’m desperate to make sure that I’m still on good terms with whomever I’m talking to. Everything I say is immediately registered and replayed in my head, as I understand and try to predict how our conversation will go. It’s exhausting to constantly be monitoring and replaying, not just my emotions, but everyone else’s as well.
In larger group settings, I analyze how other people are interacting with one another: stolen glances, sly comments, eye contact, hand placements, who’s talking to who the most, body language, and overall mood. I evaluate on autopilot, something I don’t mean to do all the time. The odd thing is that I’ve never been conditioned or taught to observe this way—it’s just my innate sense to acknowledge and recognize other people as a whole. Not only do I understand the “why” in almost every person I meet, butI also want to understand the “why” in every person I meet.
I always say that “it’s really just not that serious” to my friends and family—which is ironic because, to me, it sometimes is that serious. Since I’ve come to college and had a fresh start, I’ve been trying to shift my sensitive mindset into a stronger, more confident mindset where I give fewer f*cks about what other people are thinking or doing and shifting the focus more onto what I’m doing. I’ve gotten better, but I’m nowhere near perfect.
I’m still trying everyday to not care about how I look, how I sound, or how I’m being perceived. It’s a tough thing to leave behind, but it’s a part of who I am.