Every morning I get up and
decide.
‘Today I will stay happy.’
On most of the days, I am happy.
But as a matter of fact, there are days when I do not live up to my
expectations. And that is because; my happiness is related to the happiness of
few more persons. So today, I take the pain to educate all these ignorant
people about the simple fact in life that, ‘Situations may not be at your
control, but staying happy is completely your choice.’
Let us understand this by using
Stephen Covey’s 90/10 principle.
10% of life is made up of what
happens to you. 90% of life is decided by how you react. We really have no
control over 10% of what happens to us. We cannot stop the car from breaking
down. We cannot escape getting drenched or falling in a ditch while going to
office. We cannot escape getting stuck in a traffic jam. We cannot sometimes
escape bird shit falling over us. (My bird shitting accident rate is 3 Nos. per
year.) We sometimes also cannot escape our boss shitting on us. We cannot
escape a flat tyre, a common cold, an ATM failure or a pimple. We have no
control over this 10%.
The other 90% is different. We
determine the other 90% by our reaction. You cannot control a red light. But
you can control your reaction. Don't let people fool you; YOU can control how
you react. Let’s take an example.
Your boss is shouting at you for
no genuine reasons.
Reaction 1: You start an
argument, trying to justify your point. You forget that your boss is an ass.
You come to your desk. You punch over your workstation. The coffee spills over
important documents. You shout at the housekeeping boys. (Next time, they spit
on the coffee before they bring it for you.) You leave from office. You shout
at the driver for traffic jam. Your roommate has arranged a surprise for you.
You shout at him too. He does not allow you to have pleasure with him that
night.
Reaction 2: Graciously you accept
whatever your boss says. You come back to your desk. You make a cartoon of your
boss and upload it on Facebook. (There are many other ways too:Fire your boss.)You get numerous funny comments on it. All your
friends curse your boss together. You show the cartoon to the housekeeping
staff as well. They sympathize you. You feel nice. You leave office, enjoy the
drive. You get stuck in a traffic jam. You enjoy Facebook. You reciprocate the surprise
arranged by your roommate. And you spend the night with pleasure, with your roommate.
Always try to make yourself
believe that, things could have been even worse than they are. Your daughter
has failed in exams. You can choose to curse her, shout at her and cut down her
pocket money. Or you can choose to believe that things could have been even
worse. She could have been addicted to smoking, drinking, drugs, boyfriends,
had sex with a stranger and get pregnant and stolen all your money and gave it
to the stranger. You can choose to encourage her or promise her an i-phone. She
can do exceptionally well in her exams next time.
Never let the ‘It’s okay’
attitude die within you. Always remember, life is what we make it. At every point
of your life, you will have only two options. Either you react with a smile or you
react with a frown.
The choice is yours. Learn to say.
Awesome Post.... I liked it very much. Simple idea to stay grounded without making any fuss
ReplyDeleteThanks Mr. Ketan...I am glad, you liked it...Though these are universal facts...I have just put them in my words...
ReplyDeletelots of gyaan.
ReplyDeleteinterestin theory too!
tho d part abt d daughter did crack me up!
sumhow uve managed to mk it luk like her hookin up wid a stranger is less important dan givin all her dads money to him!
or mayb its jus sequencing. i dunno :D