MindSoulNess

Why do we do the things that we do? Lately, this is a question I have been asking myself, but I am not sure where it is taking me.

I remember when I was a kid that my father bought the Treccani Encyclopedia (the Italian equivalent of the Encyclopedia Britannica) and told me how much knowledge I would gain if I read each article in those giant volumes (I do not even remember how many books were in the Treccani, but there were many). In fact, he even went as far as saying: “For each book of this encyclopedia you read, I will give you 10,000 liras (today’s equivalent of $10 – much more valuable in the mid ’70s when my father made that offer than they are today). Being the good papa’s boy that I have always been, I told him I would do it for free just for the fun of it and the excitement of a mind-bending and enlarging exercise that really captured my young imagination and drive at the time. Although I did not read each and every article of every book in the encyclopedia, I read many. My interest and curiosity were strong and I could see some benefit in getting my school grades in the top tier of my class and my entire school.

True enough, knowledge indeed gained me academic success together with the precious understanding and mastering of the methodology to learn the important and research the essential. All this has proven very helpful in getting me a good career and good jobs overall. However, it became immediately apparent to me that knowledge is only one part of the equation for success and sustainable living. Acquiring other skills – and doing so in a timely fashion – was as important, if no more so, than knowledge.

Emotional intelligence, for one, is, in my view, at least at the same level as cognitive intelligence. Asking myself the question “What is the purpose of using this particular knowledge?” has become critical to all my interactions both at the professional and personal levels. Most of the time, especially in a situation requiring interaction with other human beings, the transformative question becomes “Who will I help with this and why?”

I learned the value of emotional intelligence when I was a teenager in high school. I remember inviting most of my schoolmates to my house and sharing my knowledge learned in class in order to help them be successful. The key was to make it fun every time and to make room for playtime. And the delicious snacks my mother used to prepare for us did not hurt either. After more than forty years, I am still friends with most of them and we remain in touch thanks to social media, which, sometimes, is not just a vehicle for negative posturing. Most of them still remember the time at my parents’ house and refer to those times as some of the most formative in their life.

The reality of life also became a strident reminder that I also needed to develop and share the skill of resilience. Issues will afflict us almost daily (at least, this is my experience) and on many of those issues, we have no control over – not to mention those that we bring upon ourselves for the choices we make in life, even if, in the beginning, some of those choices may seem innocuous. I started to understand the value of resiliency (and vulnerability) when I was 15 and lost my grandmother who lived with us. I was devastated as she was my best friend. I thought, “What is this thing? Why do we have to die? And why my grandma had to leave us the way she did?” With time, I have come to accept the reality of life and changed my question in view of all my experiences, both positive and negative, helpful and helpless, shareable or lonesome. It is now, “How can I have inner peace and help others find it too?”

Reflecting on all of this, and acknowledging the deep pain caused by most of the afflictions and adversity I had to go through (and I still go through), I realize that some of these experiences have affected the course of my life in ways that are difficult to describe. However, going back to the value of knowledge that I learned from my father so early in life, I have always found a way to learn from those experiences and profit from them. Academic or even trivial knowledge is important but experiential knowledge is even more so.

I went from filling my mind to filling my heart and soul. And in the process, I have become better at accepting what comes my way and, if not loving it, at least learning from it.

I call my personal journey from mind to soul “mindsoulness.” And with it has come a desire to share. And if you like what I have to say, share it with others as well. We all need each other in this troubled world …truly!

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