Display of Emotion by Onder

I think our behavior patterns- how we respond under various situations, how we express our thoughts and emotions, how we deal with adversity and conflict, and how we generally interact with others- are formed early in life. They are strongly influenced by the family and the socio-economic environment we are born and raised in.  If and when we move into a radically different environment, we face the challenge of modifying our behavior patterns to fit into the new environment, or be an unhappy “misfit” forever.  Of course, in order to modify our behavior patterns, we have to first be able to acknowledge that there is a problem, and then self-evaluate and diagnose what needs to be modified.  Some people never get around to doing it.  Others enroll into an MBA Program :)

I did not record my performance in the Emotion Coding Game.  So, I could not evaluate which emotions I was able to encode or decode better.  I will write about what I think I know about my way of expressing emotions, and I may like to compare it with the game scores later.

I was born in a radically different culture than the one I live in now.  My family was poor and not highly educated.  We lived in various locations in the country, some not very desirable, as my Father was in the military.  Due to difficulties of “making the ends meet,” my parents were unhappy most of the time.  I do not recall having birthday parties, sleepovers, camping trips, vacations away from home, or receiving presents.  Love and affection was not expressed openly, but anger was.  Our core values were hard work and honesty.  I was expected to work hard so that I can achieve a better life than they did.  And, I was expected to be honest and speak the truth under any circumstance.  As the only time I observed happiness was when my parents proudly announced to their friends that I was first in my class, I worked very hard to keep it that way.  And I was honest, even if it would kill me.  I can hardly be critical of my parents, as I ended up going to graduate school in U.C. Berkeley because of working hard and being a very good student.

It took me many years to become aware of some problems with my behavior patterns.  I quit a good job when my boss tried to tell me that not everything in life was black-and-white, and I should learn how to work in the grey area (I was insulted by that suggestion).  I classified people into two groups: smart and dumb.  I could work well with the former and offend the latter in no time.  I was arrogant, as I was really good at what I did.  I would dismiss other people’s “dumb” ideas outright, and humiliate them with sarcasm.  First thing I would say about a new idea was what was wrong with it.  I excused myself saying that this was a trademark of engineers; we were supposed to find and fix all that can go wrong ahead of time so that they do not do so later.  I would get into senseless arguments with my friends about trivial things, as I had to be always right.  I lost several friends that way.  I was rarely happy and cheerful, but angry quite often.  As a result, I was not a happy person.

I eventually met and married a very happy, lovely lady (who was very smart too).  She had a loving relationship with her parents, and she had the most wonderful relationship with our daughter as she grew up.  She was an optimist and she had no problem with things that were not so perfect.  She had many friends who loved her and could not wait to talk to her.  Living with her, I began to realize that I did not know how to show love and affection, but I expressed anger very well.  Being the “best engineer in town” was not the most important thing in life, but happiness was.  Things did not have to be perfect in order to be acceptable.  Nobody liked and arrogant person and sarcasm of any sort was not acceptable behavior.

Enrolling into this MBA program was part of my efforts to expand my education into non-engineering subjects and to improve my social skills.  I wish I had done it earlier.  But, I feel that it is never too late to improve yourself and your relationship with the people around you.