REACTION
“Anything that causes you to OVERREACT or UNDERREACT can control you and often does…” — David Allen
Self-control is a very necessary discipline if you are planning on becoming a success. More important, it is necessary if you are planning on having a life of significance; one that makes a difference, not only for self, but others, too. The things we overreact or underreact to are not the problem. What is on the inside is the problem. How we view the outside is the problem.
Nothing on the outside has the ability to change us as long as we have control of ourselves from within. This is what Nelson Mandela learned when he was imprisoned. Mandela was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his peaceful and nonviolent defiance against the South African government for its racist policies. Instead of serving life, he was released after 27 years. While in prison he was unable to attend the funeral of his mother or son. After being released from prison he became the first black president in South Africa.
This is also what Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, learned when he was in a German prison camp, Auschwitz, as a Jew. He learned of man’s inhumanity to man. His parents and wife were murdered by the Nazi’s. He believed people are primarily driven by a strong desire to find meaning in their life. He believed it was this sense of meaning that enabled them to overcome painful experiences. Frankl also concluded even in the most absurd, painful and dehumanizing situations, life has potential meaning and believed even suffering was meaningful. In other words, Frankl come to find it was not what was happening to him on the outside, but what how he viewed things from within that made the difference.
These men and many other men and women like them discovered the real world is what is going on inside you, not what is going on outside you. What is going on outside of us is simply a reflection of what is going on inside us. This can be hard to swallow but it is none the less the truth. We are what we think. We have around us what is being reflected from our core. Jim Rohn said, “If you will change, everything will change for you. Don’t wait for things to change. Change doesn’t start out there, change starts from within…all change starts with you.”
If you want life to change for you… If you want life to be different for you… If you want to quit overreacting and or underreacting, learn to look at the one in the mirror and say to that person, YOU must change. YOU must discipline yourself to recognize change comes from within. Instead of overreacting and underreacting, we can learn to properly respond to that which is happening to and around us. At this point, our response will bring about the best result for our life.
Best of LUCK as you
Labor Under Correct Knowledge…
Respectfully,
Rick Cox