Actions, Reactions

Something happened this morning ... nothing unusual, but it got me thinking on quite unusual lines. Unusual lines for me, would probably be usual lines for quite a few. If you drive in this part of the world, you are quite used to people driving all over the road, basically treating the entire road as one large lane (actually, these are few, but not unusual). This becomes more so when it rains (and its been raining heavily, which is a relief given the absence of the rains for the last few months) because under the water, nobody knows where the old potholes are, and where the newly created ones would be. Which means that driving can be a guessing game. Now, add to this someone cutting you off on the road, and it can be quite irritating. Yes, i know ... you know the feeling, dont you?

Well, this morning someone did that. And it affected me. But then, i got thinking ... what is impacting me. What is the nature of his action and my reaction. Or, for that matter, my action, and someone's reaction? And i found myself reacting in a way which is quite unusual for me. I was no longer irritated. I was thinking (yes, somewhat unusual for me, but even so ...). So, what was i thinking? Simple ... Was what he did inherently irritating by nature? Is anything anyone does carrying a particular human emotion attached to it? I believe it carries the vibrations of the person who is doing it, but apart from that, things we do are emotion-neutral. Emotions are caused by the way we see those things, and are the cause for how we react.

Take this example. Someone is driving and cuts someone off. No inherent emotions associated with this. Where emotions do come in is the way i reacted to what he did. I could have just shrugged it off, or i could have been irritated, or angry. Which means, that by attaching our emotions to the things someone else does, we are creating we are bringing feelings to the action-reaction equation. The colour of the action (irritating colour superimposed on what he did) is something which i brought, not he. Which means that the light of things being nice, nasty, funny, sweet, or anything else, is brought to the scenario by the perception of the receiver. Which has implications for us humans. By not associating negative colours with things which we see, we can actually change the impact those things have on us. In other words, we can choose the way we react to something, and this choice is something which decides the impact that action has on us, which we express in the form of reaction.