This article is about the four Qs that our education failed to teach us.

While we were asked to compete with the fellow students for higher IQ, we were totally masked from the list of Qs essential for human life. We failed to understand the importance to balance the 4Qs and their role in shaping our society.

I remember learning 4Ps in marketing (Price, Product, Place, Promotion) and 4Rs in waste management (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover). But the in-between letter was never taught as it had no technical importance or perhaps, someone did not like the letter Q.

There are actually four Qs essential for a person’s well being.

1. IQ
2. EQ
3. PQ
4. CQ

Some people provide a modified version of the four Qs – Intelligence, Emotional, Physical, and Spiritual. But all of them focus almost on the same aspects.

1.Intelligence Quotient :

IQ is a measure of your intelligence. It includes your reasoning, logical, and memory skills. It’s not always proportional to success. We have a myriad of success stories of people who have poor IQ or intelligence and became successful in life.

But we have never really found a holistic approach to define intelligence. IQ and grades are still the fundamental and universal measures of intelligence. And I never really understood the way they define intelligence. Whenever I see a news stating that a 10 year old or a 12 year old has more IQ than X, Y, or Z, I wonder. Intelligence is definitely not about solving a 2 hour question paper on finding patterns/reasoning and giving it a score. And comparing this score against Einstein or Bill Gates is not how you define intelligence.

Exam scores only indicate that the person had prepared well for the exam you conducted.  

2.Emotional Quotient :

It focuses on values, beliefs, and conscience that are essential for inner peace and well being. People are completely unaware of the terminologies used to describe EQ. Perhaps, the reason why our society is spoiled to a greater extent is the lack of emphasis on EQ. EQ emphasizes on self control, empathy, and social skills.

Empathy – situational awareness and understanding each other’s feelings. We lack empathy. We never put ourselves in other’s shoes. One could relate every common sentence to this terminology.

Oh..that poor man was hit by a car..
Oh..she was stabbed brutally..
Oh..that guy was murdered..pathetic…

If you pay close attention to all those adjectives and pronouns, they only describe their misery. We don’t really care who died or who did. Who actually does these crimes? They are the same people who had education like us.

We are happy to share our sympathy for the victims. But we really don’t care and respect other’s feelings. We don’t think of the root cause and solution for such incidents. Instead, we consider ourselves to be lucky, and the victims to be the unfortunate ones.

3.Passion Quotient :

It focuses on passion. Sacrificing all your time and energy for something. That something which would give meaning to your life. Lack of emphasis on passion has turned our society into a huge, messed up jig-saw puzzle with people misplaced in their profession.

4.Cultural Quotient :

It tells about race, gender, culture, and sex. CQ is essential to get involved in a cross-cultural environment and to respect the fellow human being. Lack of proper CQ is the reason for increased attacks on people based on religion, race, and sex.

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If we can evolve to live without any ethics, we don’t need conscience. Without conscience, we are just like every other animal or an object on this planet. 

Education without ethics is useless.

– Pradeep