By Rajgopal Nidamboor
You’re stuck in a major traffic jam on the way to an emergency — or, maybe, an important meeting, or job interview. To begin with, you’d have had a plethora of feelings in mind: you’d want to create an impression, or carry yourself with poise and élan. You would hate to lose your chance, and so on. Now, you are left in the lurch. How do you react in such a context?
Let’s sample a brace of responses. You’d say to yourself that it’s going to be dreadful. “You are a bloody idiot.” “Why did I not leave early?” Or, you’d react differently. “Let me face it. It was not the best thing that happened, all right. It’s also not going to make the traffic move.” “I need to stay calm. Tune into music, perhaps.” “Or, take a few deep breaths.” Where do you fit? Ask yourself.
The philosopher Herodotus put it aptly: “We are not disturbed by things, but by our opinion of things.” Anxiety, phobias, excessive anger, sleeplessness, depression etc., are feelings, also responses. They actually have much more to do with how we think than what we do.
Picture this. In the ‘pre-emergency/meeting/interview’ scenario, your anger was caused by the traffic jam. If you'd belonged to the ‘cool, meditative type,’ you'd have reacted differently. You’d never have thought that a fiasco was inevitable. Why? Because, you had had adjusted to the unavoidable circumstance, comfortably. You’d have also thought that the 'outcome' was not the end of the road.
Rajgopal Nidamboor, PhD, is a wellness physician-writer-editor, independent researcher, columnist, author, and publisher. His published work includes hundreds of newspaper, magazine, Web articles, essays, meditations, columns, and critiques on a host of subjects, aside from four books on natural health, two coffee table tomes, a handful of eBooks, and an encyclopedic treatise on Indian philosophy. He calls himself an irrepressible idealist. What he likes best is spending quality time with his family and close friends, and in reading, writing, listening to music, watching cricket/old movies, and mindful meditation. He lives in Navi Mumbai, India.
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