Have you ever shouted and screamed, or said mean words to hurt someone because they hurt you? Have you made life-altering decisions when you were emotionally charged up? Have you ever been pushed into circumstances where you are confused about how to even react? Do you still stand by the way you reacted or do you regret it?
Every single thing that we do, not do, say, not say, react to, not react to can impact our life, sometimes so significantly that it may even change our life forever, for better or worse. In my life, when I was faced with such situations I have burst out my emotions many a time. Sometimes I decided to postpone the reaction, and sometimes simply didn’t react at all. All of it has had an impact on my life.
When I was in college, one day I inadvertently slept in the exam hall. It was only a model exam but I know it was plainly wrong to do such a thing but as I said it was purely accidental. Suddenly I woke up, handed over my paper to the invigilator, and left the room. While I was zipping my bags, a friend asked me, “did you get your ID card from the teacher?”. That’s when I realized that my ID card has been confiscated by the invigilator. This invigilator was generally a strict one and I knew that there was going to be a scene in the staff room when I request back my ID card. Nevertheless, I approached her in the staff room and requested to give back my ID card which she refused to do. She asked me what I was doing in the exam hall. I said, I was resting my head on the desk. She asked again the same question. This time I said the truth, that I was sleeping, but I told her that it was not at all intentional. She wasn’t convinced. I was asked to leave the staff room. I was furious that even after requesting so many times she didn’t give me back my ID card. I decided to write a letter to the principal complaining about the teacher. I took a paper and started writing. I wrote that I slept in the hall by mistake, that it was unintentional, and the teacher is not giving me back my ID card even after requesting so many times. I also pointed out in the letter that I was taking a medication for an ear-related thing, which I suddenly remembered. I remember the doctor saying that the medications could make me sleepy. I made sure that, in the letter, I clearly put it out, that the teacher is being unfair to me and overreacting and she should be rightfully handing over the ID card to me as I have already confessed my mistake and requested to give me back my ID card so many times. After completing the letter, I read it once myself. Something ticked in my mind I felt that I am kind of overreacting. I tore up the letter, went back to the teacher and told her that I was sorry and I am taking a medication which could be the reason why I slept in the hall. She handed over to me my ID card. That was it.
This is the first time I remember learning that sometimes all it takes is one more try, that we need not react when we are emotionally charged up. I was relieved that I came out of the issue without much noise and it was possible because I said I was sorry and I explained my mistake.
Also when we are young, we would easily get enraged when we come across unpleasant things. Due to inexperience in dealing with such situations, sometimes we say or do something in reaction which could end up as unwanted and unnecessary. Once I came across a situation where I wanted to give Gyan to someone when I found out a bad thing the person had been doing but ended up I didn’t get the opportunity. I felt disappointed and sad for a few days and then carried on with my life. Years passed, I aged a little more and thus saw some more of life. I came to know of the many nasty things some people were doing in their life, not just in the newspapers. I also remembered that I myself have messed up a few times, said and did plainly wrong things. I truly felt, “Thank God! I didn’t get the opportunity to Gyan the person that day.”
In another instance in life, I was pushed to a corner where I had to make a crucial decision in life. Again, the scene was emotionally charged up. I had already made up the decision in my mind but for some reason, the issue being sensitive, I decided to postpone the utterance of my decision for a later period of time. That tiny little action of postponement has had a significant rightful impact on my life. The decision I had made up in mind would have turned out to be an incorrect one.
It is not that the decisions that we take when we are emotionally charged up are always wrong. If the situation doesn’t command instant decision-making, a postponement can create wonders. If we are going to take the same decision that we took earlier even after taking time and thinking it through, that is still fine. The person we really are, and the person we are when we are angry and emotionally charged up are totally different persons. The decisions, therefore, we take when we are angry and high in emotion will not suit the normal you and it will end up a wrong decision that you could regret for the rest of your life.