There are no tailor made situations in life 

Ever since the Kasab verdict came out, and I saw in the news channels, people dancing on the streets and burning crackers, I have been a bit disturbed. Why? I am struggling to find an answer myself. After all after he did what he did, it isn’t unjustified – in my mind though, rejoicing it in any manner is foolish. 

Before I get on to my very contrarian view on Kasab situation, which might not be very liked by my readers, some might find it even more foolish – I want to tell you a story. A story about Mr. B. 

Mr. B called a meeting. He had all his people together. He said “we’ve got a wonderful company, we are growing, we are expanding and things are going well. But some of us are becoming a little slack. Some come in a little bit late, some leave a little early, some spend too much time on coffee breaks, some too much over lunch. I recognize that some of it is my fault. I haven’t set the kind of example I should have setting. In the future you can absolutely count on this. I am going to come in a little early and stay late. I am going to restrict all my personal phone calls, none I’ll make. I am not going to do anything when I am on the job but just be on the job. I’ll take shorter lunch breaks, shorter coffee breaks…….” He really made the commitment. It was quite a speech. He set the example in place. He was very serious about it.  

But you know at times in the excitement of things we make these speeches and then we forget about it. Well that’s what happened. 

About three weeks later Mr. B was at the country club for lunch and forgot about the time. All of a sudden he looked at his watch and said, “oh my goodness! I will now have to reach office in about 10 minutes.” 

In a moment he hopped off the table, made a mad dash to the parking lot, jumped into his car, pressed on the accelerator and within 60 seconds from looking at his watch he was now racing at 100 kms per hour. Left. Right. Zig. Zag. Tires burning. Unstoppable. But the long arm of the law entered the picture and gave him a ticket. Mr. B was absolutely livid. He angrily said, “this is absolutely ridiculous. Here I am a peaceful tax payer and a law abiding citizen. All I was doing was going a little fast. I admit that. But you guys ought to be looking at the robbers and murderers and rapists and those bad guys disrupting peace. Leave us peace loving people, trying to uphold some values, leave us peaceful citizens alone.” 

Mr. B was really upset. By the time he got to office he was even more furious. He did what management has done forever. Instead of calming down, he decide to shake the system a little more. In his loud voice he called for the sales manager. And everybody in the office could hear him as he said, “What I want to know is did you close the deal on the ABC account?”  Sales manager kind of ducked his head and said, “Mr. B  I... I… I.. I don’t know what happened on that deal. I thought I had it. It was all wrapped up. Signed, sealed and ready to roll. But at the last moment something happened and it came undone.” 

Now, if you think Mr. B was upset, you should have seen him now. He was raging mad. He shouted, “This is ridiculous.  You have been my sales manager here for 15 years and I have depended on you to get me business. And now we had the chance to get the biggest business in the country, biggest account of all and what do you do. You blow it.  Well, let me tell you something friend, just because you have been here 15 years, does not mean you have a lifetime contract. I want that business replaced. We needed that account to do the expansion that we needed to do and here you have lost the biggest opportunity we ever had. YOU replace that business or I am going to replace you.” 

Oh! He was upset. But if you think he was upset you should have seen the sales manager.  

He goes storming out of B’s office. He slammed the door behind his back. Muttering under his teeth. He said, “ this is ridiculous. For 15 years I have been the one to bring in all the business. If it hadn’t been for me, this company would have gone down the drain years and years ago. And now just because I miss one lousy sale, he uses the cheap trick. He threatens to fire me. This is not fair at all.”  

He call his secretary and said, “you know that five letters I gave you this morning, have you got them out or have you been fooling around doing something else, making excuses about not getting your job done. She said, “no, don’t you remember, you said that XYZ account takes priority over everything else and that’s what I have been working on.” The manager got wilder, “don’t give me any lousy excuses. I said I want those letters out and am going to tell you right now, if you cant get them out, I’ll find someone who can. Just because you have been here seven years, that does not mean I’ll give you a lifetime contract.” 

Oh dear, he was really upset but if you think he was upset you should have seen that secretary. 

She goes storming out of his office. She screamed to herself, “this is ridiculous. For seven years I have been running this company. If it weren’t for me this company would have gone down the drain years and years ago. And now just because I can’t do two things at once he uses a cheap lousy trick and threatens to fire me. Him firing me, ya right, as much as I know about him, who is he kidding.” 

She was really upset. She walked over to the receptionist. She sternly said, “I have these five letters and I want you to get them out. Now. I know ordinarily this is not your job but you are not doing anything anyhow, except for just sitting under the air-conditioner out here and occasionally answer the phone.” Raising her voice further, she said, “I want these letters out and if you cant do it I’ll get somebody who can. Don’t for a moment think that you have a life time contract here.” 

Oh dear she really upset but if you think she was upset you should have seen the receptionist.  

She cursed to herself, “They don’t do anything in this office anyway, except for gossip, talking, coffee and talking on the telephone. Every once in a while they get a little bit of work out and the minute they get behind, they come here and put it on my desk. Each one of them. And they say now you get this out. Hell, I am the only one who does anything out here. If not for me this company would have gone down the drain years and years ago.” 

Oh she was really upset but she got the letters out. She got home. She was still furious. She walked in the front door. First thing she saw was her son laying down on the floor watching television. Second thing she saw was that he was still wearing his school uniform. The shirt was torn and food marks all over it.  She yelled, “Son, how many time have I got to tell you that when you come back from school put your play clothes on. Your mother has a hard enough time that she is working and sending you through to school. Now because you have been shamelessly disobedient, go upstairs right now. No evening meal for you and no television for the next three weeks.” 

Oh dear she was really upset but if you think she was upset you should have seen the little boy. 

He hopped, running upstairs, he said, “this is ridiculous. I was doing something for my own mother. She doesn’t even give me a chance to explain. Not fair.”  He yelled, “I don’t like this house.” And about that time, listening to the loud voice, his little dog walked right in front of him.  What a mistake!  

The boy reaches out and gives the little dog a big old fashioned kick. And said, “Now you get out of here. You probably haven’t done any good yourself.” 

WOW. 

Now here’s my question. Wouldn’t it have been a thousand times easier if Mr. B had gone straight from lunch at the country club to the receptionist’s house and kicked that dog himself. And left all of those people out of it. 

You see I have a very important question, and here it is – whose dog have you been kicking? Or who are you allowing to kick your dog.  

I want you to think about this – whether you respond to life OR react to life. That will probably determine how far you will go. 

Everyone you know, has had setbacks in life. Big ones. But the successful people you know, responded to these setbacks. The unsuccessful people you know, reacted to these setbacks. 

How do you respond when you don’t get the promotion you deserve? How do you respond when the shipment that had to out today, doesn’t go? How do you respond to these situations? Or do you react? 

There are no tailor made situations in life. There are plenty of situations in life, everyday, we dislike. My friend, a researcher at a University, just yesterday pointed out his latest finding that 90% of inputs in the modern world that get fed into the brain are negative. 90% of the news is negative. 90% of the talk in offices is negative. 90% of self-talk is negative. 90% of thoughts are self-defeating.  Now this is reality. This isn’t tailor made for excellence. All we can do is choose how we’ll react or respond. Isn’t it? 

Doesn’t everything come down to a choice? Am not here today to say that everything is a choice and you are responsible for it. No, that’s not why I am writing. I’ll agree to the fact that somebody or something or some situation out of your control might have had a hand in landing you in a certain spot. Given. However, are you reacting still to someone kicking the dog or are you responding to it? No one can change the past but you can, through choosing a response, eliminate it’s relevance in your future. Can’t you? 

As am writing this I just took a break to smoke. I told myself I need to think a little. Here’s a fact – I also chose to shorten my life by fourteen minutes. I can’t say I didn’t choose it.  When you smoke, you choose it. When you over indulge in booze at night, you have chosen to be miserable the day after. When you chose to be rude to someone, you have chosen for people to be rude to you. When you chose to be nice and loving to someone, 98% of the times, you have chosen to be loved.  

Wouldn’t this one line be true – that whenever we do anything, take any decision, or make any choice – we also chose the result it will bring? If it were to be true and it sounds perfectly logical to me – then why would we feed our brain with negativity 90% of the time?  

This isn’t about positive thinking either. I don’t think it works. I could think very positively of performing a heart surgery on you. I could visualize a perfect outcome. Yet I can promise you that if I did, you will be dead.  

I came across this man in my last workshop – he didn’t take too well to my stories on ‘self fulfilling prophecy’ - he was really skeptical. I mean he is the sort of man who probably will tell you that someone must have pushed humpty dumpty. Seriously, that skeptical!  

He said to me, “if you were lost in a desert will positive thinking get you out of there.”  I told him if we were lost on a desert together, I’ll be telling him to not worry because we will find a way and he will be cursing how we got there and pronouncing us dead.  

There are limits to what positive thinking can do. No matter how positive I get, I’ll never be writing an article on nuclear physics. Thus, I grant the skeptics this as well, that positive thinking wont let you do anything. Though I will add something – Positive thinking wont let you do anything but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will. Does it make sense? I think we could all agree with that. 

One more point, before I get to where I started this with – I have often said, spoken about and written  - about our mind being like nature –  as you sow so shall you reap. If you plant a bean, you get bean in return. If you plant mangoes you get mangoes in return. I want to point this out today – that if we plant one bean – we don’t just get one bean in return, we get many!! 

So isn’t it logical again – that if we plant one ‘negativity’ in our mind – we’ll withdraw much more of negativity from it. Equally true that if we plant one positivity in it, we’ll withdraw more than one? 

I don’t know how you will use all this in your life – whether you will or not. I hope you do but I also know that 90% of the times we’ll reject the sensible thing because our brains are so used to negativity. I know that 90% of us will simply react (reasons to reject) to this article and never respond (for your own self). 

To me a prime example of how we love to react and never to respond is Kasab. Tell me, and seriously think about it and tell me  - what good is it doing to hang Kasab? I am not saying he doesn’t deserve it and I am not saying he shouldn’t be. I understand the hatred and equally feel it too. Just a question – what good will it do? And why are people celebrating it on the streets?  

When 26/11 happened, our people died. You know how the terrorists reacted – they danced and celebrated. Now, we are pronouncing Kasab dead. Dancing and celebrating. Sad. Really sad we are. 

What do you think will happen after he is hung? Will it send a strong message to terrorists? Will it be a deterrent? Does it send a message to the sponsors of terror? After all, lets use a bit of common sense  - In my knowledge and I believe in yours too, he came here to die. Didn’t he? And so he is dying so what message? Just simply, kicking again, mindlessly. 

Did hanging Saddam Hussain mean that his supporters have learnt a lesson and will stop? Certainly haven’t. Did killing them in the Afghanistan war stop them? Is killing them in the strikes in Pakistan on the western border stopping them? Is hanging Kasab stopping them? Will hanging Headley stop them (and US isn’t doing it)? 

What do you think –  in their ‘anti-human’ speeches to inspire young men to take on the human bomb route – will Kasab’s example be used to inspire or deter?  

If not to react in this manner – what could we have done? I really don’t have answers but I want you to think about it. 

Imagine for a moment the people who perpetrated peace on this planet. Imagine the wise one’s from our recent history. Think for a moment and hold the image in your mind of Gandhi, of Mandela, of Mother Teresa. Now think that Kasab’s case is being judged by them. What will Gandhi say – kill him? What does your faith say – any religion say – to kill? 

I have written here – that we can either react or respond. Reacted we have. What could have been a response? 

I may be romanticizing a bit here – but wouldn’t responding be better?  

I really think there was an opportunity to set an example. Keep him in prison. Rehabilitate him. Make him see what they are doing. Make him self-sufficient and give him a life. Use others like him and at least begin to move towards a change. Wouldn’t you negate then Kasab like examples to motivate other men? Wouldn’t it show a way to others?  

I don’t know. 

I know what many are thinking. It makes us look weak and feeble. Some also say that it will mean more attacks. So lets just kick it again. Job done and over.  

You see we face a situation world over today. Not one thing – that anyone has done to eliminate terror has worked. Not one war, not one killing and not one reaction. Neither it will. One bean sowed leads to plenty growing. One act of war, leads to many more. One act of killing leads to many more. Each reaction leads to a bigger one and then the biggest one. We’ve seen it all during the world wars.  

As I said earlier - Positive thinking won’t let you do anything but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will. There are no tailor made situations in life and we most certainly are not in this current situation because of you and me. It is there upon us. We can’t change what happened - But we can choose – to react or to respond. Unfortunately we would have brought the government down even if they responded. We would have reacted so the government did before we could. Mr. B is thus our story – your story.  We love reacting. We love kicking mindlessly and without reason! 

I know you and I can’t change the world. Or solve terrorism of all things.  

We can though, certainly choose to respond to life and not react to it. The world might just become a better place… Just might. 

All men and women are born, live suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. 

But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live....  Joseph Epstein 

Yours’

Chetan Walia