Have we anytime realized that most of us dwell discussing, thinking, worrying and sharing about all kinds of problems in our life. The problems may be related to health or wealth or society or about the pandemic. Nothing wrong in spending a few minutes thinking about the problem. I think the there must be a radical shift from the problem to solution of the problem.I believe that only 5 % to 10% of the time we need to be in the problem. The rest 90% to 95% of the time we must be taking action in solving the problem. We must analyze the problem and quickly move on to the solution. Unfortunately most of us are doing the reverse, which is 90% to 95 %, we are in the problem and hardly spend time solving it

The reasons for this kind of human behavior may be because most of us like to take the easy route, which is only talking, talking and talking. When it comes to taking action, only a handful of people go forward and take action to solve the problem. I think one of the reasons for this kind of behavior is that people tend to be in the comfort zone rather than the effort zone. It is very painful to be in the effort zone. We all are seeking for instant gratification. We all want want quick results be it health or wealth or any sphere of life. Quick results may gave you pleasure but it is only short lived. There is a huge difference between pleasure and happiness.

Fundamentally, we all want happiness but do not want to go through the right path to get it. What i meant to say is, that we all want shortcuts. We have been conditioned to go for quick results. Just take our health. In case of a headache or fever, how many of us are ready to take complimentary medicine. We instantly bank upon conventional medicine because it gives instant results. I am not here to promote any system of medicine. My point is the human tendency is to opt for quick fixes.

The reason is that our mind and body will immediately not accept to do hard work. This is because it brings in lot of pain, which is not comforting to the mind or body. However if we invest time, effort and energy in educating our mind, it definitely will understand. For this to happen we must first understand one concept which is very critical. That is about the pain pleasure principle.

The concept of pain pleasure is very simple. It says that we tend to go either towards pleasure or go away from pain. This is normal human instinct. Now, some people get influenced more in going towards pleasure whereas some others get influenced by going away from pain. We need to understand what is our trigger. Let us go back to the example of health. We usually opt for conventional medicine. Now let us say, we want to opt for complimentary medicine. Immediately one of the two things will occur in our mind. Firstly, we may begin to think of all the pain we need to undergo that is number of days or how long it may take to recover. This is a typical example , where our mind and body will begin to take a flight response. Secondly, it is definitely easier for us to opt for conventional medicine because it will cure the symptoms immediately and this is what we say going towards pleasure. Now , if we are able to understand the fact about delayed gratification and consequences of instant gratification, most of the problem would be resolved.

Now let us use the same pain pleasure principle for opting delayed gratification. The moment we can link pain to the consequences of taking action when we opt for instant gratification, there will be a shift in the thought process. For instance , if we are able to link enough pain by taking conventional medicine to our body , then the probability of not taking the action becomes more. Similarly, if we are able to link pleasure in opting for the complimentary medicine, again the probability of opting for it will increase manifold times.

So, whatever the situation is in front of us, it finally boils down to how we link pain and pleasure to the consequences of taking that particular action.

Now ,we need to understand another important factor which influences one to take any action and that is about our emotional energy. That is if we are able to link more emotions to the pain or pleasure , then that would greatly influence us in taking action.

So how how intelligently we handle emotions is what matters at the end. This is popularly called as Emotional Intelligence or EQ(Emotional Quotient). Just like IQ(Intelligence Quotient), we also have EQ. There is another factor called SQ(Spiritual Quotient). So what is this EQ all about? I consider EQ as how intelligently on is able to deal with emotions. We all humans have lot of emotions like happiness, enjoyment, entertainment, ecstasy, laughter, sadness, anger, depression, frustration etc. So how does one cope with these emotions, is a big challenge. Some people who are not able to cope with these emotions tend to commit suicide or they just quit.

I believe that every emotion (positive or negative), is just an indicator or a signal to us. Just like the traffic signal where green light indicates us to move and red light indicates us to stop, very similarly each emotion is a signal. For instance anger is an emotion which signals to our body and mind that something is not right. It indicates that there was an expectation and it was not met. Once the emotion gives us a signal, the next step for us, is to take action. In fact every emotion is a call for action. So next time when we confront any emotions, we just need to analyse what is it indicating or and what action needs to be taken. Many a times, we get carried away with the emotions and we tend not to take action. Now another important factor is, that while taking action, it must be an action which is trying to solve the problem rather than aggravating it. For instance committing suicide or quitting is also an action, but is detrimental to one’s progress in life.

Conclusion:

Everything boils down to whether we are focusing on the problem or are we focusing on the solution. In order for this to happen, one needs to understand the “Pain- Pleasure” principle and also need to understand about “Emotional Intelligence”