EQ or IQ

A man bought a new pair of trousers for his primary schoolmates' reunion dinner. When he tried out at home, he found that the trousers were too long by 10 cm.
He asked his mother to help him shorten the pants. His mother said she could not do it as she was not feeling well and would like to rest early. So the man approached his wife to shorten his pants. His wife said she was very tired and had a lot of work to do that night, so she could not help him to shorten the pants that night. Then the man asked his daughter. His daughter apologized for not able to do it that night because she had agreed to go dancing with her boyfriend. "Ah well!" The man thought and decided he could just wear his old trousers to the reunion.
Later that night, his mother thought to herself, "My son has been very nice to me. I'll just help him to shorten his pants before going to rest." So she shortened the pants by 10 cm. Then his wife finished her work and thought, "My husband knows I am always very busy and seldom asked me to help him. I would oblige him today." So she shortened the man's pants by another 10 cm. His daughter came home from dancing, and thought, "Papa loves me very much and when I declined to shorten his pants, he was not angry at all! I would help him to shorten his pants." So she shortened her dad's pants yet another 10 cm.
On the next day, the three ladies told the man that his pants were shortened. He tried them on and found that his pants had become shorter by 30 cm. The man laughed heartily, and said, "I must wear this pair of pants to show my schoolmates that my mum, my wife and my daughter are such loving people."
At the dinner, his old classmates were very envious of his loving family. When he returned home, he told his family. His mother, wife and daughter were all very happy to learn about his classmates' reaction.

Many of us have high EQ when dealing with people outside the family, and low EQ when dealing with family members. Treat your family with appropriate EQ as well. At times, we should put more emphasis on EQ than IQ for good reasons. A matter may become a good one if we handle it with a little bit more sense of humour.
If you were the man, what would you do? Have a big laugh? or start to swear XYZ?

How To Become Happy

In my blog 'How To Become Happier' on 26Mar10, I discussed that we can always be happier disregard we are happy or not, and went through some ways that can help us becoming happier. In this blog, I'll take one step further and discuss on how to ultimately become happy.

A. Always Be Happier
    As a first step, we can always be happier as mentioned in my previous blog, and as such, I do not intend to repeat here any further.
B. Appreciate What We Have
    While we should always aim for higher and better, nonetheless we should always be content of what we are having; our family, friends, what we process and our status quo. Remember, the present is always already a present. Do not be unhappy unnecessarily.
C. Seeing People Around Us Happy
    We will feel happy when we are surrounded by happiness. When we are in Disneyland, we feel happy because we are surrounded by a happy environment and atmosphere, and by happy people everywhere. Likewise, when we see that our family, friends and neighbours are happy, we will be happy too.
D. Making People Around Us Happy
    By making people around us happy, we can have happiness around us. As result, we'll feel happy as mentioned in C above. There are various ways we can make people around us happy. We can employ whatever means appropriate to us, e.g.:
. buying a gift for our family and friends
. sharing funny and interesting stories, and our favourable experiences with others
. helping out with people needing help
. making donations to charity
. performing voluntary work in our community
. to a larger extent, be a philanthropist and contributing back to the society (some of) what we gained from them
E. Seeing That We Can Make People Around Us Happy
    When we see people around us happy as result of us making them so, we'll have a very high degree of personal satisfaction. The happiness we acquire from such at that moment is usually far beyond any words of description.

As we expereience, happiness from material gains (e.g. living in a big house, having a delicious meal or enjoying a luxurious holiday etc.) is usually superficial and short-lived. Happiness gained from sharing happiness with others are mostly much more intense and long-lasting, and surprizingly, usually comes for free!

Be happy always!