Can You Control My Reaction?
This is the fourth question on the fifteen days challenge.
Question four: On a scale of 1 to 10, how hard is it for someone to get under your skin?
Well… My answer will be 7.
Getting under my skin is pretty easy. In a day, if I get to have an interaction with 18 people, 8 people will surely get under my skin, and probably 1 or none will realize it.
I work with the mantra, “I can’t control how you behave, but I can control how I react.”
I can’t let you do the controlling for the both of us.
So when I am vexed, I react like Pepa in Encanto “clear skies, clear skies”.
I become silent immediately, I have learned not to speak when you are angry, you might end up saying things you would regret later, and no one will share the blame with you.
I refuse to take any action at that moment until i have thought it through with a clear mind, because what I might end up doing might be greater than what got me annoyed in the first place.
I have gotten to the point where I rarely let my anger stay for more than a minute.
If it is a great offence 5 would do, after that I wouldn’t be thinking about what annoyed me, but how to avoid it. I begin to plan and make decisions then. It is more productive
I calm down and gently ask myself.
Is it worth my time?, because obviously I am using my energy and time to brood over what is not adding value to my life!!! And 90% of the time, it is not.
Funny how all this happens in my head in less than a minute.
So yes, you can pretty much get under my skin, but you can never control how I react.
