Do you react, shy away or respond?

I recently learnt a very interesting thing from my teacher, Harshad Bhaiya about how we deal with situations. Everybody's life has some frustrations triggered by events or people. How do we deal with them? Generally, we do one of the following things-

REACT- You throw back the unpleasantness by reacting. If a person seems to be the cause of pain, then you take ‘revenge’!

SHY AWAY - You take a backseat..

RESPOND - You act- not out of impulsiveness or anger, but out of awareness. And how do you do it?

a) You experience the uncontrolled thoughts and feelings. Since every emotion is time bound, this inner storm certainly calms down.
b) If you figure out that you have a role to play, you play it.

And whats the best way out of them??

When you REACT, things soon turn dirtier and undoubtedly fall back upon you.

When you SHY AWAY, only your body attempts to shy away. Your inner world is in turmoil.

But when you RESPOND, you take the right action without any impression and that makes you get out of the dirt clean.. makes sense? :-)

Distorted Perceptions

Often we get biased about other people due to our past experiences with them. This distorts our perceptions about them with respect to future events and actions.

So, if a person who is desirable does something ‘bad’, we tend to look for a positive reason for his/her action, and whereas if another person who is not so desirable does the same action, he is looked upon in negative light. That person's 'bad intentions' or ego are blamed.

Especially during the times of quarrels, when one's judgement is polluted with bias, more misunderstandings are created.

A mind that judges under the influence of bias or ego always errs. So, be aware of this tendency of mind!