When surfing through the Indiblogger forum
threads, I was surprised to see some bloggers considering my blog as
inspiration. These were the people who have put up wonderful blogs themselves
and are very popular in the forum. I am not very active on forum as I do not
get to surf net too often between my housework and other commitments (sadly not
all of them are smart).
I was talking to friend and mentioned to
her how people consider my surviving cancer or bringing up a special needs
daughter to be inspirational for them. What have ‘I’ actually done? Nothing
much. I had to fight cancer to survive, and I did. I could not give up on my
daughter, so I love and care for her like any mother would. What is
inspirational about me? I was a person who gave up on education when I could
have achieved so much. I did not pursue a career with gusto. I was kind of
failure in life.
What my friend said rang a bell in my mind.
She said what happened to me was just life and how I handled it, or precisely
reacted to it was inspiration. It was not letting things pull me down but use
it as a spring board to soar higher than I would have in normal situations.
Thinking back on her words I started
analyzing in my mind how our reactions make difference to our lives. How our
attitudes changes a situation itself. Soon I found myself writing a blog about
it. LOL.
How we react to a situation is very
important to the outcome of situation. When we talk about domestic violence,
dowry deaths and other social evils we tend to ignore the fact that proper
reaction from the victim can change the situation to some extent. The reaction
could be one of the brave and strong, or witty and smart.
People who learn to cope and handle a
situation properly have discovered a total new way of life. Everything about
our lives is not in our control. Sometimes shit happens and we cannot do
anything about it. In my family, four members were affected by cancer. We all
reacted in a different way to it and we all had different outcomes greatly
influenced by our reactions.
It is not only in traumatic situations that
our reactions affect the outcome. Take for example a situation where a student
may find a very confusing and tough question paper which may not fetch good
marks; even after all the hard work s/he has put into the subject. If the
student becomes nervous and tensed, s/he may end scoring even less marks which
can be avoided if s/he can keep cool and access the paper properly. Similarly
when we have to wait for a bus, train or a person; we find some people getting
fidgety and impatient, whereas some try to make new friends or catch up with a
book.
Major part of our happiness depends on how
we react to life. Let us keep our reaction in our control because most of the
things happening around us are beyond our control and reach.
We have to be extra cautious when we are
bringing up our children. They are going to break some precious things, soil
their expensive clothes or flunk in the exams. Punishing and cursing will not
change the situation but will have bad emotional effect on the psychology of
the children. If the kids are teens, then this may lead to verbal war with bad
consequences. The situation or result never changes but the way you go through
your day with a bad mood has effect on other work activities you do through the
day.
For example imagine this situation.
A working wife is busy getting ready for
work and preparing breakfast for the family. By mistake she adds more salt to
the dish. If the husband calls her a bad cook and pushes away the plate,
everything will wrong from there on. The wife will try to defend herself by asking
angrily why she has to do everything. They will end up accusing each other and
may carry anger against each other for the whole day. With a bad mood they may
end up making mistakes in the office and having rough time with the colleagues.
These tiffs at times become bricks, which slowly build a wall between two
people.
If the husband would wait for the wife to
have her breakfast, then she is surely bound to realize her mistake and say
sorry about what happened. He can say kind words like “I understand you have so
much on your hands early in the morning. Mistakes are bound to happen. Don’t
fret about it; we can manage with this for today. It is no big deal”. May be he
will be lucky to get something else for breakfast which is never going to
happen when he accuses her. A proper reaction to such a situation will help in
development of understanding between the partners and bonds them together with
stronger love. These are the situations which weave the rope of love to bind
two people together forever in their lives.
The above example will work in every
situation we come across in our life. People passing negative comments on our
achievements, accusing us of wrong doing, or stooping down to throw verbal
abuses at us can make us feel sad only if we allow it to make us sad. When the
water falls down on mud, it soaks it in and becomes wet, but the stone will not
allow the same water to affect it any way. We have to become tough like stones and
not allow such negativity to soak into us.
At times a bad or wrong reaction can cost
us a dear friend, our job, our marks or our health. Blood pressure, depression
and stress are highly related to how we react to a situation in our lives.
So simple is this solution yet it is so
elusive. Time and again we react badly to a situation and ruin our lives. I am
learning my lessons and trying hard to be in control of what is happening to ‘ME’
if not what is happening around me.
Here I would want to share one of my
favorite story(Sam Levenson’s) with you……..
A poor family had been trying to marry off
its only daughter for years. Finally, a very wealthy young man became
interested in her.
The girl’s mother, being an excellent cook,
decided to deliver the coup de grace by inviting the boy and his parents to a
home-cooked dinner. They were of course led to believe that the young lady was
doing the cooking. The mother strained the budget and purchased a beautiful
turkey with all the trimmings. She outdid herself in preparing the bird. It
looked almost too good to eat.
The
big event arrived, and it was time for the turkey. One could almost hear a drum
roll as the daughter made her entrance from the kitchen into the dining room,
carrying the beautiful and succulent turkey on a tray.
As
she stepped from the kitchen, her heel caught, she tripped, and the turkey flew
off the tray skidding and rolling across the dining room floor into a corner of
the room. There was an explosion of embarrassed silence. The girl’s mother saw
the ruination of all their plans right then and there. She was backed into the
corner just as the turkey was.
She
looked up the ceiling for a moment, as if praying for assistance from the
Almighty. She must have gotten it, for her face lit up as she turned to her
stunned offspring and said, “That’s all right, my dear, just take that bird
back to the kitchen and bring out the other one!”
