Control

One day my son came back home from school, very upset. In fact it is the first day for him at the new school. He was upset because he thought he was not treated properly at the school. In the previous school, the students were not controlled in the class and he was enjoying due to familiar environment.

Suddenly this changed. As he did not go for first week, the teachers expect him to complete the backlog in a day (at least he felt so). All these upset him and he came back home in a tense mood. Wife was upset as she tried hard to get him admitted in the new school.

I met him in the swimming pool in the evening after my return from the office. We talked a little. When I came home, I asked him how he felt at the new school. He told me all his woes and expressed the desire to go back to the old school. This he did about 10 times that night.

I said, lets see and asked him what his teacher wanted him to do. We both together worked and completed half of the notes. Then I told him that I will complete the balance work in his rough notes so that he can copy the same the next day, when he has time. Then we discussed some rubiks cube solving(his current fancy) in which he could teach me something. Then he slept off.

The next day, though not enjoying, he prepared and went to the new school. The resistance had gone down. Had to work on it for more days.

Generally we get upset when things are not to our liking. Our liking mostly is based on pre conceived notions and not on rational thinking. It my not be to our good, if we take some decisions in that emotional state. This is because in an emotional state rational brains ceases to work.

It is required to control ourselves at such times. In other words one needs to control oneself from oneself.

For this one needs to understand the phenomenon of emotions and emotional triggers. Once a person gets sensitized to this aspect, one can search for triggers which takes him to such state. The trigger can be a dis agreement, a talk back from subordinate or peer etc. These are to be found by the person who wants to know.

Once the triggers are identified, one can check for ways to avoid those triggers. There are many ways to distance oneself from these triggers. One has to research for what works best for him.

This gives one control over oneself. We can train children in this by rational reasoning over a long period. Though the exercise is time taking, it is worth pursuing.