I have been a fan of Dr. Steven Covey, who authored the highly acclaimed book "The 7th Habits of highly Effective People" which was published in 1989. Though the content has been written more than 20 years ago, the principles taught is timeless and still very much applicable. One of the liberating lessons which I learned is about the freedom to choose our responses. The following is extracted from his book.
Between stimulus and response is a space. in that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness. No matter what has happened, there is a space between those events and our responses to them. If there is even a fraction of a second between stimulus and response, that space represents our power to choose our response to any situation. The key is to enlarge our "Freedom to choose" space.
On the 27th December, I was asked to be the MC for my brother in law's wedding dinner. In the past I have seen many unexpected things can happen and so I have decided to stay calm regardless what might happen. True enough something did go wrong, the food which was scheduled to come out at 8.00 PM, was delayed till 8.30 PM. I decided to keep my head cool and inserted other programs in-between. Though it was stressful, taking hold of my ability to choose my response has helped me to use my creativity to save the day.
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