Reacting

So last night I witnessed an over-reaction to a situation. The sad thing about this overreaction is that it was in front of youth in a church setting. While the reaction was just over the top, what made it more outrageous was the setting and the audience. I won't go into details of the situation, but let me just say, it really made me think. What it made me think about mostly was how I choose, yes choose, to react in certain situations as well. While I certainly hope I would never overreact in a similar manner, I can see how it takes practice to ensure one always has proper and effective reactions to situations. I admit there are times when other's actions do affect us, both for good and bad, but we are always in control of our actions and reactions. I think there are times when a drastic or dramatic reaction is certainly appropriate. I can think of a few situations in my life where I have seen this: When my mom found out her brother had been murdered, when I saw a tree fall on my house, the horror of watching the news on 9/11. Situations like these are shocking and I feel deserve comparable reactions. When damage is done to us or around us that is out of our control, I feel our reactions will be stronger than other times. But I have seen people overreact when the situation does not warrant it. I have been in a sales meeting when the boss tells the staff that the factory is going to discontinue a certain product and a sales person yells "WHAT?! What are we going to do?" or seen someone kick the copy machine because it jams (oy vey! it is a machine...) or the one that gets me so mad is seeing someone yell at a child for being a child and doing childish things.

I am sure there are times where I have, and still do or will, overreact to situations. However, I truly truly believe that I am in control of me the same as you are in control of you. I have the choice to make on how I will react to all situations. I can choose to make a scene, or I can ingest the situation and react accordingly. It brings to mind Newton's law of motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is a big point of the critical thinking process that is taught so often now in college learning. It takes practice to sit back and let all of the information come out and then to make an informed decision or reactions. Is it always easy? No. But common sense tells me that there is no reason to use abusive or offensive language in front of ... well really anyone; hitting someone in the face is not appropriate reactions; getting mad because you lock your keys in the car (holla Besty!) does no good to help the situation; grounding a child for an accident is counter productive, while grounding a child as a punishment for a deliberate action is appropriate. (but what do I know? I don't have kids!)

Bad things are going to happen in our lives, this is a given. However, how we react to these situations is a real test to our character. Sometimes things don't happen that we want (getting married, having children, getting the promotion or raise we think we deserve, etc) and these times too we have a choice to make on how we will react. Since I am using me as an example so well in this rant, here I go again. I could be very upset that I am 33 and still single. I could. I could be depressed and cry about it because no one loves me in that way. OR. OR I can make my life the best I possibly can recognizing that if I am not happy single why in the world would I assume being married is going to make me happy? But then I digress.

Reactions are always expected in every situations. Overreaction and under reaction, however, is not helpful in (I would say) 99% of cases... maybe 95%. And of course, practice makes perfect... so act and react away!