Many conflicts arise when people react rather than act toward a situation. Most problems could be resolved if people endeavored to do so with a positive attitude. Here, an act is accompanied by a positive attitude while react comes with a negative one. You can easily judge a person by the way he approaches a conflict.
If he approaches it with a negative attitude, the conflict will be aggravated. However, if he approaches it with a positive attitude, the conflict will be resolved easily. Man is responsible for most problems. He often blames God for all his problems, when he alone is responsible for all of them.
Most of man’s problems are due to his rotten attitude. When a man attacks others negatively and with a bad attitude, he invites problems for himself. Sometimes envy takes over and he breaks his relations with others.
Ultimately he blames God. Man makes mistakes and makes God the scapegoat for the most part. As long as a man enjoys pleasure, he forgets God; but the moment pressures begin to build up, he recalls God and holds Him accountable for all his problems.
Man must be grateful to others and to God.
In addition, most of the time man reacts to problems, instead of acting vis-à-vis them. Man blames individuals for all issues without looking at ideas to resolve them. Man often wants an easy life and quick success and compromises on several things, and finally blames God for the consequences.
90:10 Principle
When one of my students wanted to share the 90:10 principle with me, I requested him to share it in the presence of other students so that they too could benefit from his knowledge.
He said that 90 percent of problems can be solved by acting rather than reacting to the situation and that 10 percent of problems were beyond human control. Hence, we should not concern ourselves much with that 10 percent that arises out of external forces and factors; but we need to take a quick look at the 90 percent of problems that can be tackled easily with a proactive attitude and approach.
Treat every problem as a prospect and every lesson as a path toward your success.
Reaction versus Response
People often miss the subtle difference between reacting and responding. There is a difference between the two, with the former word sending a negative and the latter a positive message.
If people know the difference between the two and approach a situation intending to respond rather than react to challenges, I am sure most problems can be averted and conflicts resolved.
It is essential to respond rather than react and to act rather than react to others. Both responding and acting on issues sound better than reacting to them. By nature, most people react rather than respond to unfavorable situations.
This proves to be costly later. And most people are aware of this, so it is unfortunate that people still react at the spur of the moment and regret it later.
Reacting often leaves us in a lurch. However, with time, patience, and practice, you can make responding your primary method of dealing with tricky situations. When faced with problems, people often react rather than act without giving serious and cool thought to it, and this aggravates the problem.
Sometimes people magnify tiny problems and worry a lot, resulting in more provocative reactions. Certain things in our lives are beyond our control. There is no point in reacting to such situations, and we can avoid doing so.
People often waste their precious energies by brooding over things over which they have no control.
Life is in your hands. You have a choice to make—either to react or to respond to a conflict or a tricky situation. It is said that below-average individuals talk about individuals, average individuals talk about issues, and above-average individuals talk about ideas.
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” ― Thomas Jefferson
Everything is present in the human mind and informs how an individual views a scenario and approaches to handle it.
Your life depends on the path you choose and the decisions you make. Life is full of challenges, and man faces problems from the cradle to the grave. Man’s problems end the day he goes to his grave.
Hence, it is essential to respond rather than react to problems. Doing so makes sense, and makes your life peaceful and pleasant. It also helps you to empathize with others when they have problems of their own.
Several wars have broken out due to the reactive attitude of our rulers. If rulers had only acted with restraint, they could have averted several wars. Ultimately, it was the people who were killed and countries that met with disasters.
Hence, the reaction is something people should avoid. When people act rather than react, most of their problems are resolved naturally.
To conclude, have a positive, right, and strong attitude and learn to act rather than react to situations.
Finally, have an attitude of gratitude towards God.