Start responding

I’ve a story to share having a great lesson and wanted the readers to go through. It’s my conscious effort to keep moral of the story intact and recapitulate the incident in and around the core theme.

I started driving bike at the age of 13 and have been receiving compliments about my driving skills from my friends, family members and people known/ unknown to me right from the beginning. Though I haven’t participated in any of the professional / formal racing competitions and neither have any awards which certify my driving skills but I believe that I drive better. Generally I don’t loose temper in traffic jams, honking by other drivers and never shout and scold other drivers for the mistakes and confusions/ deadlocks created by them.

But one day a strange thing happened, though this it’s a first of it’s kind of incident with me but might be day to day affair where people having a close shave/ narrow escape against the lady drivers.

I was crossing a busy cross road and was intended to take a right turn, I gave the indicator and comfortable took a right turn and started driving thereafter, I was over taking a lady who was driving on a bike, in the mean time God knows what happened to her and she started advancing more in the right direction. Having a good knowledge of driving skill of ladies through my own experiences and encounters I assumed that I;m going to hit her. To avoid her banging with my vehicle I gave a right indicator and started moving to the right.

A gentleman driving behind me started honking and indicated me something with his hand, I opened the window shield of my car and politely told him

“I have given indication of my intentions to take a right through the indicators”

“Can’t you see at the back… IDIOT…!!!!!” roared the gentleman and zoomed.

I felt Defeated and dejected.

I thought probably he was right and might have not seen my indicator because the entire incident happened in a spurt of moment, and instead of giving him the explanation I should have asked for an apology. The incident made me think that have I responded to the situation? A close analysis gave me non affirmative answer. I lost my patience which I generally don’t and instead of responding; I reacted.


How could have I overcome these limitations and what should be the way to respond the situations like this?

To overcome this I should have responded instead of reacting. Reactions are instinctive while responses are intellectual. If there is no gap between what happens to me (stimuli) and what happens through me (response), then it creates reaction. But if there is a gap to think and contemplate then one can respond thorough-fully. An intelligent person responds; while fools react. I though I was fool as I reacted and not responded.

Its not shouting from the boss which disturbs a person but it’s his/her incapability to handle the disturbance caused by shouting disturbs. Its not traffic jam which disturbs us but it’s his incapability to handle the disturbance caused by traffic jam which disturbs us. In nutshell it is not something that disturbs the individual but incapability to handle the disturbance caused by something which disturbs.



Image source: usacac.army.mil