Most of us live our lives reacting more than acting and this is costing us the price of failure! Instead of the hanging in to be directed by the winds why not peddle your own canoe?
One day I was just looking at the body's mechanism of inflammation and it occurred to me that most often than not, most people behave in similar fashion.
When bacteria invades the body, the white blood cells identifies the bacteria cell as none self and throws in all it got at it. Some organisms have evolved into using the same mechanism of defense against the human body. Instead of macrophages killing them, they rather get protected by it and the get the chance to multiply inside of it to launch a severer attack.
Anyway, let not make this a medical presentation, I want to relate with the cockroach theory of human behavior;
The cockroach theory was narrated by Sundar Pichai – an IIT-MIT Alumnus and Global Head of Google Chrome:
At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady.
She started screaming out of fear.
With a panic stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach.
Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group also got panicky.
The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but… it landed on another lady in the group.
Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama.
The waiter rushed forward to their rescue. In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter.
The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behavior of the cockroach on his shirt. When he was confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant.
Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach responsible for their histrionic behavior?
If so, then why was the waiter not disturbed? He handled it near to perfection, without any chaos.
It is not the cockroach, but the inability of those people to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach, that disturbed the ladies.
I realized that, it is not the shouting of my father or my boss or my wife that disturbs me, but it’s my inability to handle the disturbances caused by their shouting that disturbs me.
It’s not the traffic jams on the road that disturbs me, but my inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam that disturbs me.
More than the problem, it’s my reaction to the problem that creates chaos in my life.
