How can we have control on our responses while we are receiving impulses from outside world every moment? Imagine you are in a traffic block, what kind of frustration you must be going through during those moments? As a result you reached the office late and your boss became totally upset with you. Which way you are going to respond? When you reached back home late after a tiring a day, your wife showed her anger for reaching late. What is going to be your response here? In short every moment you are getting tested by one impulse or the other. That is where it says, you should be more internally driven than externally driven.
Here is a story. Once, a lady was doing shopping in a mall. She was accompanied by her 6 year old daughter. The child was very naughty. While they were walking through the corridors, the girl was grabbing things from the shops and disturbing the people around and was creating such intolerable nuisance. The lady was managing her somehow or other. When ever the girl does some nasty thing, the lady would say ‘Christy, cool down.” As they were going around the shops this lady was repeatedly saying ‘Christy, cool down.’ One gentleman was observing all these and he got amazed about the lady. He was thinking, “How cool this lady is. Even after the girl doing all the mischievous things the lady is only telling her to cool down. Had it been my wife, she should have finished that girl and torn her into two pieces.” He couldn’t stop himself from appreciating that lady for her patience. He said, “Madam, you are unbelievable. I truly appreciate your patience and tolerance. I will bring my wife to you one day, you need to teach her how to be so patient,” then he asked “By the way how old is Christy?” “35 years” the lady said. The gentleman got amazed, “what are you saying? this child is 35 years old. What is the problem with you?” The lady laughed and said, “Christy is my name and I am 35 year old.” For a moment the gentleman couldn’t understand what she was telling, then he realized that what he saw there was an Internally Driven person.
It may not be easy to practice this. However in this fast paced world, where stress is built into everything, you are going to have so many situations, which test your patience and your character. If you start getting driven by all these external factors, you will have nothing but stress in your life. You think that situations and people are frustrating you. But it is the other way around. You are getting frustrated by the situations and people. In fact the decision is yours; to get frustrated or not. Yes, of course the people and situations may be trying to frustrate you, but it is you who is getting frustrated. By getting frustrated, are you gaining anything? Only stress and tension! Do you want those? No. Then decide not to get frustrated. It may look simple on paper and tough to practice. Yes, I agree. Let it be tough, but still you can practice. Remember, Practice may not make things perfect; but Practice makes things permanent.
At least try to practice for this week and let me know the difference. Have a wonderful week ahead
