CHILDHOOD DAYS, REVISITED

Everybody remembers his/her childhood days. I don't and don't want to.

Currently, I am reading a book "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Coleman. The book talks about different aspects of emotions that people have, their psychological as well as physiological aspects and many other different things. All in all, the book is a good read, and is quite resourcefull indeed. We mostly only focus on intelligence regarding marks in schools, success in career ladder, but never take much care about our own emotions and the feelings of people around us.

There is a chapter on emotional illiteracy. That chapter gave me quite a blow.

After reading that chapter, I have been thinking about my childhood days. I have been thinking about all the stuffs that happened around, all the things are coming back. The way dad behaved with me, things I did with my friends, my friends' attitude towards me and many other things.

I am supposed to be the brightest child in my family. I always scored best marks in school. In college, I was given an award upon completion of our course (it doesn't matter to me at all). I have always focused on my studies, and my career, and I have very few friends. Actually, I don't know how to make friends at all. I cannot continue a relationship for long, it has to break at some point.

Some say, I am very much cold and I don't feel anything. All my life till now, I have focused on studying and building my career. I haven't given a thought on going with my friends, having a steady relationship or anything like that. My dad always made me study hard. I didn't spend my childhood playing outdoors. I have my childhood friend, we used to play sometimes, but it wasn't frequent.

I don't blame my dad for this. It just moulded me up. Now, I don't care about people around me. I am very much selfish and career centred. I don't know what to say when someone cries in front of me. I am just in loss of words.

Through my working years, I have learnt alot from my friends, lets say, the world outside my known turf. I made a quite a few friends, and some intimate friends as well. We discuss great deal of things. That also helped schooling my emotions, I learned how to react, how to console and above all, how to talk.

Now, I am a professional. I talk and meet people most of the time. I do enjoy it. I have now become quite talkative (and drunkard as well). I can describe things in very convincing ways. I can give different scenarios to the same thing. Well, that is what I gained. But sometimes, it is still hard for me to express what I feel. I just want someone to understand how I feel without me telling him/her. I say, eyes show your emotions before your face or body does. So, one should learn to read eyes.

Do you know how it feels to be without a friend for 3 crucial years of your school? And when that period is the time when you become a man from a boy. I still carry that scar with me.