Weekend Adventure With A Rat

This weekend started like every other weekend. On Friday evening, I caught up with all the news and relaxed on my bed. One news article was playing on my mind. Due to recent weather changes in Australia, they have seen an unprecedented wave of mice infestation. The news article showed images of teams of mice running helter-skelter in barns and fields. Frankly, it scared the daylights outta me. I was taken back to my childhood when I encountered a small rat at school, and in its attempt to escape the room, the rat ran up my teacher’s leg. The incident took place in our music class, it was filled with different kinds of instruments, and the whole scene was complete pandemonium with 20 children, a teacher and a rat running around.

I went to sleep with these thoughts and woke up early the next day to see my nightmare realised. As soon as we opened the backyard door, a small rat ran into our house to escape the rain. As soon as we saw it run into the house, the chaos began. My maid, mother and I were jumping up and down, trying to escape the path of the rat and, hopefully, scare it away. But the rat was here to stay and hid behind the shelves. We needed a game plan to tackle the rat, and we needed it quickly.

Firstly we closed all the other rooms in the house to contain the rat in one place. Since it still was early in the morning, we could not run to the store to get a rat trap or those sticky pads. We each took a broom and started to scour each room to scare it and corner it. After half a day of frantic searching and running around, we managed to herd the rat into the balcony of our bedroom and forced it down the rainwater drain. We immediately blocked the drainpipe to make sure it did not come back up again. Finally, we were able to breathe a sigh of relief. We ended up tired, dusty, and hungry, but the house was once again rat-free.

Though we are drained out, the rat forced us to reorganise the house and remove all waste and useless stuff that was lying around. We did a quick cleanup under all the beds, corners, shelves etc. We did this to ensure that there were no hiding places for these cretins anymore. What should have been a relaxing weekend turned into a home cleaning mission all because of a rat.

Respond, Don’t React

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.
-Wayne Dyer

I read this quote of Wayne Dyer, an American author and motivational speaker. Initially, it seems like a simple statement about life in general. It, in fact, reminded me of another management lesson of how we should always respond and not react.

Both these quotes convey the same lesson, i.e., we should watch how we behave while responding to what is done to us. We should observe if our reaction is a knee jerk response to everything or if we understand the situation and reply accordingly. Many times, it leads to either resolving conflict or aggravating a simple misunderstanding into an all-out war.

Coming back to Wayne Dyer’s quote, when we are in a situation, there are several ways to handle them. Some are knee jerk responses, while some are strategic moves planned to build a brighter future. Some may be conniving schemes that create destruction. The situation we land in may not be our karma or our destiny. However, our response to this unforeseen situation will create our karma. If we handle it gracefully and peacefully, we build good karma. By taking out our anger and seeking revenge, we only create bad karma.

To better explain it, I will narrate a small anecdote. It occurred many years ago, but it highlighted this quote.

One day, my friend and I entered the bank and met an old acquaintance. This lady lived in our neighbourhood previously, and she was notorious for her unhinged rants at passers-by. I saw the same lady verbally abusing another person. This person was thoroughly embarrassed in front of all the bank employees and customers, so she ran out crying as we all watched in shock. Now the lady saw me and started abusing me. She recognised my friend and spoke ill of me to her. But I ignored her as if I had no recollection of her. As a result, I did not react to her abuses, turning my head and going about my business. My friend acknowledged her, and while calmy speaking to her, she led the lady out of the bank. Once the lady went out, everything went back to normal. Everyone in the bank praised my friend for handling the situation. They appreciated me for not fighting back.

The lady created a situation where three different people were embarrassed. We each responded differently. The first person reacted emotionally and ran out. I ignored her and carried on with my work. My friend intervened intelligently by removing her from the bank and stopping any further conflict. The lady’s behaviour was her own karma, but each of us created our own karma while we handled the situation. Thereby, one ended up in tears, and another (my friend) ended up as the hero. Isn’t this thought-provoking?

It’s Not Yours Unless You Take It

The first time I heard my manager say this to me, I thought he meant to encourage me to reach for my promotion. The next time he said that to me, we were discussing my team’s poor performance. The team was performing poorly due to the willful actions of a particular member of the team. This was dragging the entire team down. I felt that since I was the team leader, it was my responsibility. I tried to correct, teach, chastise even threaten that particular member, but to no avail. My manager felt that the person was a lost cause, and I should not waste time on him. In both situations, the same advice taught me to work for my ambitions, and let go of the dead weight.

Many years later, I heard the same advice from my friend when I complained about an insulting situation I had to face. She advised me that the insults were for me as long as I took them. Once I stop taking them, they are just words that hold no meaning to me. I thought that she was being just philosophical and not practical. Now I see the true meaning behind the words.

It is not yours till you take it, be it a promotion, responsibility, insult or praise. Be it happiness or sorrow, it can only affect us as long as we let it do so. A problem is ours to solve, only if we consider it as our problem. Responsibility is ours to carry only as long as we choose to fulfil it.

These words can be understood in two ways. It can be used as a way to either shirk responsibility or get rid of an unnecessary burden. To ignore good advice or to undermine praise. To brush off insults or to seek out blame. Which option we choose shows our attitude in life. When you feel burdened or stressed out in life, or if you lack direction and purpose, then maybe it is time to change your attitude.

Are We Reading Too Much Between The Lines

Reading between the lines is a phrase that loosely means, to grasp what has been left unsaid, to uncover the truth behind the half-truths. In the past, it was an intelligent trait that only a few wise people possessed. The ability to read between the lines was a highly respected quality, people flocked to such wise ones for advice. By closely observing the body language, past history on the matter, the attitude of people involved and other socio-economic situations at that given point, one would make an educated guess about the intended meaning and unsaid story in a message.

The reason that I have raised this point today is that I have noticed that nowadays, we have stopped listening to what is being said. We see social media platforms abound with crazy conspiracies and theories that are based on seemingly innocuous interviews, discussion and press tours etc. Even mainstream media has stopped reporting facts and started producing conjectures and their analysis of what is said rather than giving us a chance to decide for ourselves.

We are so busy looking for the underlying message that we have stopped listening to what is being said. When we listen to someone speak, we closely observe every minute change in expressions, variation in pitch, tone of voice, line of vision of the speakers etc. Every time we see any fluctuations, we scramble to decode its meaning. We argue and debate to find an explanation. When we find it most of the time, it is the most perverse and unreasonable explanation we can think of.

As a result of all this ‘reading between the lines’, simple conversations are a thing of the past. Slowly reading between the lines got transformed into conspiracy theorizing. This intelligent quality got morphed into the petty and unhinged babbling of a conspiracist. You can visit any of the social media platforms and get 10 different versions and analysis of the same interview. While one site reads the meaning behind the message as a prediction of doomsday, another theorizes it as a ray of hope, and someone else says something totally tangential to both. Everyone tries to connect the dots to create different images while the viewer is left with a headache.

I miss the good old days when news channels only reported news and left the analysis to us. They stated only facts and the storytelling was left for grandmas. I miss the days when only a few wise souls could ‘Read between the lines’.

Use Writing As Therapy

Writing is often considered a good habit to cultivate, many use it as an avocation. Some might even turn it into blogging as I have. But, I feel that penning down your thoughts is the best form of therapy. This is not an original thought; many psychologists have recommended that we maintain a journal of all the events that affect us. I never quite understood the benefits of this exercise until I tried it myself.

It all started with an interview of a famous celebrity, I will not name him as he is a controversial figure with many people glorifying him and just as many reviling him. In this interview, he was asked to advise students who study away from home and fall into depression.

He gave the following simple exercise for all students who feel alone or agitated on any event or issue. ‘Every time you face an issue that disturbs you, write it down’. Find a peaceful place to sit and record the complete incident from your memory in that book. After writing it once, if you do not feel calm, write the same incident again. Try not to revisit what you wrote the first time, but write the whole incident freshly as you remember it at that moment. Repeat this process of writing until your mind cools down. He said it is a way of removing the incident from your mind and getting rid of it.

I tried to follow what he advised and found some interesting things about myself. I realised the first time, I described an incident that hurt me in great detail. I wrote an essay that was 20 pages long describing my emotions, my pain and all hurtful words. The next time I wrote it, the number of pages came down considerably, so did the description of all the emotions. By the end, I wrote about the event 5 times and my fifth attempt was only half a page.

I read back at all the 5 essays that I wrote and I was startled to see the change in tone with each attempt. At first, it was all centred around me and my feelings. The next attempt was slightly less about me and more factual. The third time I became a bit critical of my self. By the last time, I narrated the incident from a 3rd person pov.

I found this technique very helpful and therapeutic. It was also a kind of analysis into my way of thinking too. I want everyone to try this method of self-therapy before we pass judgement on it. Tell me how it works.

Understand the problem before you set out to resolve it

We always speak about identifying the problem and working towards resolving it. But, there is an important step in between both of them and that is ‘Understanding’ the problem. As a matter of fact, understanding the issue is the biggest part of resolving it. I’ve heard many people say, “what can you gain by understanding it, just get rid of the issue”.

By not understanding the predicament, we run many risks. One of them is that our resolution to the issue might be incomplete. We could give the wrong solution that might check the trouble, but not resolve it. We could also end up repeating the mistake that caused the issue in the first place. 

Here is an example of an actual problem that was aggravated because of lack of understanding. An uncle in our neighbourhood developed a cough. Since it was winter, the doctor attributed the case to be simple cold and treated it accordingly. The cough persisted, so the doctor increased the dosage of the cough medicine. The issue was not resolved even then. The uncle changed many doctors over 3 months with no results. He got multiple chest x rays, blood tests, and cultures done to check for an infection. Due to the prolonged cough, he developed redness and soreness of throat along with severe pain in his chest muscles. He was not able to eat anything much and was feeling very weak and miserable.

In the meantime, he went to another doctor to try his luck. As it turns out, he was lucky. This doctor asked for all other symptoms apart from coughing and pains. He also reviewed food habits and considered the past history of my uncle’s health. Once he got a clear picture, he started his treatment. My uncle was cured of his cough. We were ecstatic and we asked the doctor the reason why his medicines worked while all else failed.

It turns out the reason for my uncle’s cough was not in his lungs or throat or any infection. My uncle had an acidity problem and suffered from acid refluxes. His throat was damaged because of the acid reflux and this irritation in his throat led to cough. When the doctor gave him medication to cure his acidity, it removed the root cause and his cough was alleviated. 

This example of acidity causing cough might be a one-off situation. However, it helps to highlight the point that understanding the problem is the best way to resolve it. Try not to rush to solve the problem rather, take time to understand what is transpiring and why it is occurring. Then formulate your plan to save the day.