One of my flaws is that I always let other people control my emotions. Others dictate whether I'm going to have a good day or bad day. I've been working to get better at this but have made very little progress. I've always felt others strongly influence our feelings. Today, I came across a short article from the author named above. Here it is.

DO YOU ACT OR REACT
Sydney J. Harris

I walked with my friend to the newsstand the other night, and he bought a paper, thanking the newsie politely. The newsie didn't even acknowledge it.

"A sullen fellow, isn't he?" I commented.

"Oh, he's that way every night", shrugged my friend.

"Then why do you continue to be so polite to him?" I asked.

"Why not?" inquired my friend. "Why should I let HIM decide how I'm going to act?"

As I thought about this incident later, it occurred to me that the important word was "act". My friend ACTS toward people; most of us REACT toward them.

He has a sense of inner balance which is lacking in most of us; he knows who he is, what he stands for, how he should behave. He refuses to return incivility with incivility, because then he would no longer be in command of his own conduct.

When we are enjoined in the Bible to return good for evil, we look upon this as a moral injunction...which it is. But it is also a psychological prescription for our emotional health.

Nobody is unhappier than the perpetual reactor. His center of emotional gravity is not rooted within himself, where it belongs, but in the world outside him. His spiritual temperature is always being raised or lowered by the social climate around him, as he is a mere creature at the mercy of the elements.

Praise gives him a feeling of euphoria, which is false, because it does not come from self-approval. Criticism depresses him more than it should, because it confirms his own secretly shaky opinion of himself. Snubs hurt him and the merest suspicion of unpopularity in any quarter rouses him to bitterness.

A serenity of spirit cannot be achieved until we become the masters of our own actions and attitudes. To let another determine whether we shall be rude or gracious, elated or depressed, is to relinquish control over our own personalities, whish is ultimately all we possess. The only true possession is self-possession.

Your thoughts?

 

Great advice, OR. A great friend of mine told me at breakfast on Sunday that he'd noticed himself laughing a lot when he'd been at dinner with a certain group of folks -- didn't even remember what he was laughing about, but the laughter from everyone was contagious. Happiness is contagious as well and I'm sorry to say, so is sadness. I've made some wonderful friends whose names I do not know -- they are people who check out my groceries in the supermarket, the folks at the 7-11 store and the guys who put my tires on my car. Even if those who provide service for me are not happy campers, I think it is important to be kind. I discovered quite by accident that the lady who works at the 7-11 near my home is working despite a debilitating illness, rearing her grandchild and taking care of an invalid husband -- if she's not smiling when she waits on me, she has good reason. I'll be smiling when I hand her my cash. If I'm passing on something contagious, I really, really hope it is happiness, not sadness.

 

Who the Sam's hill hell can be around you for 6 seconds without laughing?

 

I am like most people I know, and react, good thoughtful post.
Thank you!

 

I too try to act right and not get upset but I still do react. Especially when it's a medical appointment and I feel like I'm being treated poorly. That's why I took action yesterday to file complaints about my treatment during my colonoscopy. As if the procedure itself isn't bad enough.

I try to make my normal good attitude contagious but when it gets knocked down too much in one day I lose it.

 

I act more than react. Myra reacts, & I at times get in trouble for not reacting enough.

 

Liz and I are an interreligious, interracial couple. A long, long time ago we decided that if anyone had a problem with that, we were going to let it be their problem. We weren't going to let it become our problem. We certainly weren't going to react. And, we decided to pass that attitude to our kids. We have been successful at maintaining that attitude and for all of the years, and for some of the comments we've heard (more in the past, less now) we haven't let anyone bother us. This is our way of not allowing anyone else to control our emotions. For the most part this attitude flows over into the rest of our lives.

Unfortunately, like everyone else, we do sometimes react to things that happen around us and to things that people do. Someone, somehow will "get our goat" and we react. Still, for the most part, we have learned that the only time others can have an effect on us and our attitudes and emotions is when we let them.

One of the things that we have learned over time is that most everyone wants to exert some control and influence over others. If you let them, everyone will take a piece, and before you know it there will be no piece (and/or peace) left for you. It is far better to not react and not let them have the piece.

 

I was always in react mode and depending on others for my happiness until someone convinced me I was voluntarily giving all of my power away. I didn't like the sound of that and starting working to change modes. Now I've made it one of those dreams folks talk about going for. It is a process, unfortunately, that person didn't tell me how long it would take. I think you have to get to a point where it doesn't take much convincing to get you to at least see the need for change. The school of emotional hard knocks gets you there a lot quicker. My $.02

 

granny,

I already see the need for change. But how do you do it? How long does it take?

 

Sonny, if I really knew the answers to those questions (it's different for each person), I wouldn't be sitting here, I'd be out conquering something or doing something really exciting. It was very hard, never having been alone, but I started by doing things that made me and me only happy, usually by myself, just to see if it would be as lonely or scary as I thought it would be. Once I found out that it wasn't as bad as I thought, it got good to me. However, I had to take baby steps at first and I remember that it was a little scary...okay, a lot. Now......I need to be reined in I'm so far out here (driving to Ohio on a whim, buying sport cars in the first place all by myself).

Oh, another big lesson was to disconnect the buttons that people were always pushing to get me to react. Once I disconnected them just be choosing not to react (again very hard) and they pushed and didn't get the normal reaction, they left me alone and went away shocked. I had to start by looking at what was behind the way I used to think. Then it became a matter of who was in control, them or me. As long as I was not in control, I was hacked to pieces, like Rob said.