Waiting to React
When I think back on some of the best days in my life, and some of the worst, there is a common theme running through most of them, and that theme is the moment seems much more dramatic and urgent when I’m in it. Whether I’m disappointed, thrilled, saddened, elated, or frustrated, the emotion always fades to match the situation’s reality more accurately with time, sometimes as little as a few minutes later. With that being the case, it would make good sense for me to give myself time before acting or speaking in reaction to the situation.
There are times when the situation obviously calls for an instant reaction, such as a fire or other emergency. Luckily for me, those types of situations tend to be few and far between. In this post I’m talking about your everyday occurrences, or even not so everyday things like a job promotion or a busted headlamp or a windfall of money or the loss of a college friend. A helpful practice is to give yourself a little time to reflect and consider the occurrence from different angles, even to gather more information, before launching into a full-on verdict/judgment/sentencing.
The reason for this is simple. Good things are never quite as good as they seem at the time. This may sound pessimistic and bitter at first, but consider the flip side of that truth: that bad things are never as bad as they seem. Giving one’s self time to let the true nature of the situation reveal itself through the haze of strong emotions tends to avoid the mistakes of over-reacting or mis-reacting to it. This is why you’ll often hear people say things like “I’m going to sleep on it” or “Can you give me 48 hours?” before making a big decision.
The practice of mulling things over has, unfortunately, been diminished and discounted in our modern, instant-information, instant-gratification society. We need to remind ourselves that not everything demands an immediate judgment and reaction from us. Most of the time, it’s better to reflect on and consider a situation before coming to a final decision.
Here endeth the lesson on reacting to the events in our lives.
Bike Newbie 