All of us have been in a situation at least once, where your teacher is dishing out assignments after assignments, your mom is scolding you for being on laptop or phone all day when that’s practically your school right now and the whole universe is trying its best to push your buttons.
To make matters worse, no one understands your plight and tells you you’re overacting, or being angry for no reason.
That really pushes it to the edge.
How can someone expect you to remain calm when nothing’s going your way?
No one in this world can be happy all the time, and it’s okay to feel angry or stressed every once in a while.
But when you let situations get the best of you, that’s an issue.
One might say that how we respond to situations is not really in our control, the situation we face determines that.
However, that’s not really true. You know how?
If how we react depends on the situation, then for the same situation, every single person on the Earth would react the same way, every time they face it.
I can bet you haven’t seen a single situation where every person reacts exactly the same way. Let alone other people; sometimes you yourself don’t have the same reaction to the situation.
When you are composed you react better, as opposed to when you’re already in a bad mood you see things worse than they are.
This just goes to prove that how we react depends on us, and not the situation.
Therefore, how we react to a situation becomes a choice.
There are two sides to this coin of how we choose to respond.
Being able to choose your reaction puts you in charge of what happens after you react.
Some might consider this as a boon because they get to decide what happens with them. They would accept the situation and try to take the best step possible.
But, here’s the catch.
Some might consider this to be a terrible truth because this would mean you take responsibility of your state and have no one to blame but yourself.
Then again, how you see it is your decision. The fact remains the same.
How I see it is that ultimately it is your life and you are responsible for whatever happens. The reigns of your life are in your hands.
Moreover, when you reply to a situation out of your free will, not because of a trigger you are responding to the situation. When you reply to a situation because of the trigger, you are reacting to a situation.
React or respond – the choice is yours.
Recap for memory:
- No one in this world can be happy all the time, and it’s okay to feel angry or stressed every once in a while.
- How we react depends on us, and not the situation. Therefore, how we react to a situation becomes a choice.
- React or respond – the choice is yours.