REACTING AND RESPONDING ARE DIFFERENT

Pic.: Rachna Talreja Mukhi

“IT IS BY CHOICE AND NOT BY CHANCES

THAT WE CHANGE OUR CIRCUMSTANCES.” 

― Nadia Sahari, 

As it is said, our deeply-rooted habits do become our deeply-rooted nature. Our deeply-rooted nature shapes our personality... and, through our personality, we carve our own destinies...

Today, in my early morning batch, when I caught myself complaining about my students – many of them had turned up, despite my daily ‘sermon’ on it, without doing their home-work, and many had turned up with shoddy-work – I, suddenly, realized that I was doing it more as a habit... It had become an instinctive response to the stimulus... That is, my students’ behavior had become the trigger to my reaction. In fact, the more I cribbed about it, the more irritated and stressed I found myself to be... And, suddenly, I could sense the power I had, unwittingly, handed over to my students to rule my peace of mind, my well-being...

Is there another way to respond whenever my students keep repeating their mistakes? Yes, there is. Often, we become aware of this way in the midst of our agony... when our instinctive way of reacting only causes turmoil within...

Reacting and responding are as different as drowning and swimming. I drown, when I lose control; I swim, when I am in control... Dr. Stephen Covey had said, “Between the stimulus and response, there is a ‘gap’, a ‘space’.” When driven by our instinctive emotions – our anger, fear, insecurities, prejudice etc. - we are unable to see this ‘space’... We lose our control, and react automatically... and, when we keep doing it, again and again, it becomes our hardened habit, which, in turn, becomes our equally-hardened nature, our personality.

So, right in the midst of our agony, when awareness strikes us, like a bolt from the blue, we, often, are able to see the ‘gap’, the ‘space’... And, in this ‘space’, we are able to see - as clearly as in a summer-sky – that precious human-endowment called ‘Freedom of choice’...

Need I react – grumble and get worked-up – when, in the next class, my students, once again, turn up without doing the home-work or with shoddy work?

Because, now, I am able to see my freedom of choice between my students’ behavior and my own, I can answer this question, with all the conviction in my heart...

“No, I need not.”

GERALD DC’UNHA