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Your reaction to what happens around you makes a big difference about how your day will be.

An example is if someone yells obscenities at you from a car as you walk down the street.

• You can immediately laugh it off as that person drives away.
• You can understand but for the grace of God goes you.
• Or you can get into a fizzy, dancing around in anger in your head, exploding with abuse back and then carrying this darkness around with you for the rest of the day. If you let the anger build within you then you will carry the anger of and hurt other people as well as yourself. Such as getting home and snapping at people or going on about how unfair it was that someone did this to you.

The worse thing is that while you make this destroy yours and other people’s day, the people who yelled at you more than likely forgot about it after they laughed about it. They got on with their day forgetting you quickly after the event.

Wisdom is letting anger go as soon a possible so that you don’t react in anger for the rest of your own day.

Something to remember is:

“Your reaction is a reflection of your own character.”

So if a person reacts with foot stomping, unjustified anger, hate speech, tantrums, violence and the like, this is an indication of that persons maturity or lack of maturity, upbringing and mental level.

People who are guilty of something sometimes react with much loudness, anger and physical threatening behaviour.

They hope that their forceful reply will cause you to back off and not ask anymore questions or accuse them of what they know that they are guilty of but are trying to hide from you and others.

I have developed a very calm way of reacting to angry people or to people having a fit at me.
I just stand and watch. I don’t react at all. I just stand there.

You see, if someone acts immaturely to me and I react in kind I am just adding to the foolishness, anger etc.
But if I don’t react then they eventually calm down and all is good.

We were taught in security training to decelerate the situation, meaning to step back and let the other person get it out of their system and once the person has calmed down we can reason with them.

By not adding to the anger etc we are calming the situation and doing by not responding at all.

If you struggle with certain aspects of yourself, consider finding your ‘space’ to respond,

rather than reflexively react, by doing the following:

Consider the person you would like to be:

Think about the person you would like to be, especially in the areas in which you struggle.

For instance, you might not like your tendency to become quickly frustrated in difficult situations,

wanting instead to be a patient person. Take the time to develop a clear vision of this more ideal version of yourself.

Think about the meaning or origin of your reactions:

There is a reason that you react as you do.

It can be very helpful to understand your reactions, and perhaps even their origins.

For instance, you might be impatient because you imagine failing to fix problems, and so you experience great anxiety.

You might also realize that your parents tended to be critical, leaving you to believe that you always fall short.

Observe the outcome of your reactions:

Pay close attention to the results of your reactions.

By bringing negative consequences to your awareness, you will be more motivated to change your reaction to a desired response.

With our example, you might note how your impatience makes it impossible for you to effectively solve problems.

Imagine a better response:

Think about better ways to respond. Imagine doing them and the consequences of this.

Also imagine what it would feel like to respond more in keeping with what you want for yourself.  

Continuing the example of a problem with impatience, you might envision yourself responding calmly to a problem and then moving on to find your way to an effective solution.

Learn a more compassionate approach to yourself:

Because personal change takes effort and time to accomplish, it is important to support this process within yourself.

Being critical will only undermine your efforts.

So, instead, practice being understanding and patient with yourself – much as you would be supportive of a child or good friend who is working to develop a new skill.

You very well may need to learn particular skills in making some changes.

For instance, you might want to learn skills in assertiveness, anger management, being more social, or relaxation.

Psychotherapy can also help you to relieve anxiety or depression, as well as address any other personal struggle.

Whatever your situation calls for, you will find creating ‘space’ is an incredibly powerful part of becoming the person you aspire to be.

- Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps. Psychology Today.

The Cockroach Story.

A cockroach landed on a woman in a restaurant.

She started to scream out of fear.

With panic-stricken face and trembling voice, she started waving her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach.

The lady finally managed to brush the cockroach off her and it landed on another lady in the group.

Now, it was the turn of the other lady to continue the drama.

The waiter rushed forward to their rescue. In the excitement, the cockroach fell on the waiter.

The waiter stood firm observing its movement on his shirt.

When he was confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers , took it to the door and threw it out.

Was the cockroach responsible for the histrionic behaviour?

If so, then, why the waiter was not perturbed?

He handled it to near perfection, without any chaos.

It is not the cockroach, but the inability of the ladies to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach that disturbed the ladies.

It is not the shouting of your father or your boss that disturbs you, but it is your inability to handle the disturbance caused by their shouting that disturbs you.

Its not the traffic jams on the road that disturbs me, but my inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam that disturbs me.

In all, it is not something that disturbs me, but it is my inability caused by that something disturbs me.

More than the problem, it is my reaction to the problem, which hurts me more.

Then, how do I outgrow this limitation?

I should not react. I should always respond. The women reacted, whereas waiter responded.

Reactions are instinctive, whereas responses are intellectual.

Between the stimuli (what happens to me) and the response (what happens through me) if there is no gap, it creates reaction.

But, between the stimuli and the response, if I use the gap to think and contemplate, then I can respond thoughtfully. An

intelligent person responds; a fool reacts.

Reactions are always instinctive whereas responses are always well thought of, just and right to save a situation from going out of hands, to avoid cracks in relationship, to avoid taking decisions in anger, anxiety, stress or hurry.

* How practical would the relevance of this be in a corporate setting?

* How often do we react rather than respond to a problem at work?

* Would you prefer to react before responding or respond before reacting.

Think about it.

- Jeff Nthiwa.

A man walked into a newsstand to buy a newspaper.

He thanked the proprietor politely, but the proprietor didn't even acknowledge his greeting.

A friend observed. "He's a sullen fellow."

The first man replied, "Oh, he's that way every night."

His amazed friend asked, "Then why do you continue to be so polite to him?

Answered the man, "Why should I let him decide how I am going to act?"

- Leslie B Flynn.

When Everything Material Is Lost:

Dr. G. Campbell Morgan tells of a man whose shop had been burned in the great Chicago fire.

He arrived at the ruins the next morning carrying a table.

He set it up amid the charred debris and above it placed this optimistic sign,

"Everything lost except wife, children, and hope.

Business will be resumed as usual tomorrow morning."

===

If you take every insult or rude slur of your fellow human beings personally, you will be offended for the rest of your life.

One of the most freeing things we learn in life is that we don’t have to agree with everyone, everyone doesn’t have to agree with us, and that’s OK.

As Bruce Lee once said, “I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”

Live by this quote.

Don’t let the opinions of others make you forget it.

It takes a long time to learn how to NOT judge yourself through someone else’s eyes, but once you do the world is yours for the taking.

We have all been placed on this earth to discover our own life, and we will never be happy or successful if we try to live someone else’s idea of it. So give up worrying too much about what others think of you.

Regardless of what they say about you and your chosen path, remember that the only approval you need in the end is your own.

- Author Unknown.

Quoted by many people.

===

You cannot change how people and events affect your life.

But you do have power over how you accept them and how you react to them.

You're going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times.

But in the end, it's always their actions you should look to. It's actions, not words, that matter. - Nicholas Sparks.

A person's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth.

If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.

Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a person tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts, By pursuing this process, a person sooner or later discovers that he or she is the master-gardener of their own soul, the director of his or her life.

They also reveal, within themselves, the laws of thought, and understands with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought forces and mind elements operate in the shaping of his character, circumstances, and destiny.

- Based on the thoughts of James Allen, As a Man Thinketh.