In our everyday life, we go through continuous impulse-response mechanism. Every moment we get some impulses from outside and we respond to those impulses; some times voluntarily some times involuntarily. These impulses could be anything. It could be verbal or non-verbal. Your brain responds to the smell you receive in your nostrils, the taste you get on your tongue and also to the verbal and physical impulses you receive every moment. Unfortunately most of us don’t have any control on the responses. We are like puppets; where we respond to each and every impulse we receive. For some people the response is so fast that they even think the response has come without their knowledge. They call themselves as ‘short-tempered’ and they believe that it is a character which cannot be changed. There are some other people who take pride in having this quality (or bad quality), whereby they say, “whatever comes in my mind I say it. I am not bothered in which way the other person is going to take it. I am a Straight forward person.” There are so many people around you who are in this state. They take pride in being ‘straight forward’. In fact to a greater extent this ‘straight forwardness’ has become an excuse for their uncontrollable responses. When you come across such a person ask him, “I appreciate your straight forwardness, but tell me how many friends you have? How are your relationships in the family?” The response would be, “I don’t have any friends. In fact I don’t care about family relationships; all these are drama. I don’t know how to act like an artist. I am very natural. Whatever comes in mind, I will speak out.” Though he is making all these bold statements, just imagine what kind of a horrible life he must be leading. But even for the horrible life he is having, he has justifications. Once I spoke about this subject in one of my seminars and immediately one gentleman stood up. He was quite angry and upset. He shouted, “What do you mean. Are you telling that we should not be straight forward? That is stupidity. I cannot accept your statement. I have served the Indian Army I capacity of Captain for more than a decade. One of the qualities I always boast off about myself is straight forwardness.” I said, “I am not against straight forwardness. Most of the people take straight forwardness as an excuse to cover up their incapability to control their responses to the impulses they receive. You can be and should be straight forward, but in the process you have no right to hurt some one’s emotions.” Hence when you respond to situations and people, make sure that you are not hurting anyone. At the end of the day, what matters is how many people felt good because of you.
Go an extra mile do something to make others feel good. Have a wonderful week ahead
