The Power Of Reactions

You’re walking down the street and you overhear someone telling a dirty joke to their friends.

They all have a good laugh about it, but for some reason it affects you in the wrong way.

You wonder how they can be so uncaring about their environment, how childish that joke is and how sexist it is towards others.

As you walk away you roll your eyes and sneer at the air in front of you.

Do you feel better now having done that? Was that truly the way you wished to react to that situation?

It’s Saturday evening. You decided to go see a movie with your friends in the theater because it has been a while since you last went.

They convinced you to see this movie about War, and while it’s not what you would usually watch, their insistence on how good it is made you go.

Half an hour in you realize you hate it.

You roll your eyes at every other scene, look at your watch every five minutes, and even cover your ears at the parts you don’t want to think about.

And once it’s finally over you feel relieved and promise yourself never to watch such a movie again.

Is that really the best way you could have handled that situation? Is that how you wanted to react?