Dear Fellow members, Distinguished guests,

Good morning.

Have you ever felt angry with you met some frustrating situation? Have you ever felt joyful when you achieved something great?

These are the emotional moments we all have. Emotions will affect how we react to things, normally our behavoir will different according to different emotions.

Recently I have recorded my major emotional reactions to others. There were also some emotional moments.

Let me share with you some of them.

On the morning of 22nd, March, I read the news about Richard Stallman’s reinstatement in Free Software Foundation. I was very excited and shared this with many friends, and most of them were glad, too.

This was the joyful moment. I felt relaxed when I share information with people, and people felt joyful too when they resonated.

Richard Stallman is the founder of Free Software Foundation, and was the long time president of the Foundation. He has been devoting his life to the Free Software movement. I respect him, and so do many people.

In 2019, because of some deliberate misinterpretation of his words. He was forced to resign from MIT and FSF. That was a very shocked and sad moment. That happened in a very short time, and most of us did not really have time to think over and react, so I wasn’t make my voice loud enough.

Now he is back. His return for me is of course a good news. I was very glad to hear the news. However, on the afternoon of 24th, March, just 2 days after the news, I got an email about supporting Richard Stallman.

What was wrong? My emotion changes to worry.

In fact, because of his return, some people began to attack Richard Stallman again. They were organized. They published an open letter, which is full of mistakes. Their purpose is to stop Richard Stallman from backing to FSF.

This made me very angry. I wrote an email to the FSF board of directors to support Richard Stallman. I also involved in debates in some group to defend my opinion.

Some debate was very emotional. Both parties used strong words and wrote very long posts. The debates become endless. I have read a thread of over 100 posts.

This is the doubtful and angry moment. I felt frustrated and wanted to have a face-to-face confront.

In the time of internet, a large portion of our time is spent online, often not face-to-face. Emotional Intelligence is still important under this new situation.

Without facing each other, we may tend to be less vulnerable to anxiety. However, we may become more word-violent, less self-awareness and less self- regulation. We tend to attack each other more often. This is very bad.

On the other hand, in the network, most of us still want a good virtual world. We still want to respect and to be respected. Recognizing my emotions and developing self-awareness is still very important. If we understand our emotion more, we could understand our response more and can make a better virtual world.

After reviewing the recording of my emotional moments, I began to think how should I control my strong emotional react to situations above. I felt that it is hard to persuade myself who is right and who is wrong. However, it is good to think of why I had these emotions, whether it is reasonable to react with these emotions. Doing so, I feel it is easy to control myself.

I will apply this technique in my future emotional moments.

Wish you all enjoy every moment of your life with more emotional intelligence, whether online or offline.

Thank you.