What do Joe Wilson, Serena Williams and Kayne West all have in common? They have all made the mistake in the last week of not exercising one of the most powerful options we have as human beings. We each possess the unique ability to choose how we react to the events that affect us every day in our lives. Each of these three famous individuals have chosen to react to an event in their lives in a way that has embarrassed them, cost them personal respect in their respective arenas, and have acted in a way that has hurt others in doing so.
One of the most important lessons we can learn is to take control of the moment between an event that happens to us and when we react. Our brains are powerful tools if we train them to pause and choose. That is right; it all comes down to creating a moment of time, a pause in reacting, between the event and our reaction to it. Once we create a moment of time to think about how we are going to react to a situation, we will almost always make a better decision than if we react right away.
Joe Wilson blamed his outburst calling President Obama a lire, on the power of “his emotions” getting the better of him. Our emotions affect the choices we make and can sometime seem very powerful, but we still have to make a choice to stand up in a joint session of Congress and disrespect the President of the United States. I believe that if Joe took one or two seconds to think about the choice he was making he would certainly have chosen not to have to apologize for his action, be the talk of every news network and to have a resolution passed in the same congress reprimanding his behavior.
So what can cause us average human beings the same kind of issues. Well how about that email that you received today where the person writing the email was accusatory, shared bad information and best of all carbon copied it to their entire address book. What is your first response? Do you want to jump on your key board and tell them how things really are and point out how “stupid” they actually are? You know if that email goes unanswered to that entire distribution list without a quick rebuttal from you everything in it is bound to come true.
I say take a deep breath, wait an hour; wait till after lunch; you may even want to wait until tomorrow before formulating your response. I learned in First Aid Merit Badge that unless the person is not breathing, their heart isn’t beating and they are not bleeding to death – you have time to evaluate the situation and make a good decision. By giving ourselves time to think it over, let our emotions settle down, maybe event seek the input of a mentor or trusted confidant (my wife always provides me with good perspective) we will make a better choice of how we react.
Serena was “in the moment” and ended up with three days of coverage of a 12 second obscenity filled tirade. Who knows what Kayne West was thinking he was going to prove, but I am sure that he enjoyed being called out on (as he should have been) the season opener of the new Jay Leno show. The highest viewer ratings since the finale of America Idol, that's over 17 million people.
Take time to make your choice. Time brings things into perspective, and if your can consciously work on taking time to think about your reactions your life will be fuller and you will be able to achieve at your own Peak Achievement levels.
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2 comments:
I'm so impressed with how you communicate / write. I know we talk about how we have a choice in how react to things all the time, but you have blown me away with your thoughts in this post.
Well thought out and said. An important lesson we all need reminded of from time to time. Thanks for taking the time to bring these incidents into perspective and applying the lesson to our own lives.
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