A beautiful speech by Sundar Pichai - an IIT-MIT Alumnus and Global Head Google Chrome:

The cockroach theory for self development

At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady.

She started screaming out of fear.

With a panic stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach.

Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group also got panicky.

The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but ...it landed on another lady in the group.

Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama.

The waiter rushed forward to their rescue.

In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter.

The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behavior of the cockroach on his shirt.

When he was confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant.

Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach responsible for their histrionic behavior?

If so, then why was the waiter not disturbed?

He handled it near to perfection, without any chaos.

It is not the cockroach, but the inability of those people to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach, that disturbed the ladies.

I realized that, it is not the shouting of my father or my boss or my wife that disturbs me, but it's my inability to handle the disturbances caused by their shouting that disturbs me.

It's not the traffic jams on the road that disturbs me, but my inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam that disturbs me.

More than the problem, it's my reaction to the problem that creates chaos in my life.

Lessons learnt from the story:

I understood, I should not react in life.
I should always respond.

The women reacted, whereas the waiter responded.

Reactions are always instinctive whereas responses are always well thought of.

A beautiful way to understand............LIFE.

Person who is HAPPY is not because Everything is RIGHT in his Life..

He is HAPPY because his Attitude towards Everything in his Life is Right..!!

Culled from LinkedIn.com

Creating a balance of harmony is ones life requires great skill and discipline. ..

This is only possible for people who are willing to learn from their past, work on their present and improve on their future..

Stephen Covey, in his great book, called it BEING PROACTIVE. In it he stated that whatever happens to us is called STIMULI, and we either react or respond. Many people simply react; they don't respond.

Between the stimuli and our feedback, we have some time to choose our behaviour, either to respond or to react. When we react to things, we do so with negativity and exasperation. But when we respond, we do so with with calm and maturity.

We cannot choose what others or circumstances will throw our ways. But we can determine whether to respond or to react. Reaction brings depression and helplessness. Response brings joy and peace.

If we must be happy in life, then we must be so learned and mature as to respond to all life throws our ways.

We must be in charge of our lives. It's not always easy to attain this level of maturity, but as we remind ourselves always of this truth, the better we become conscious of it and adjust our behaviour.

Events + Response = Outcome

Events are occurrence in life, they are constant and we have no control over them. They could be good or bad (poverty, wealth, health, accident, ailments, earthquakes, rain etc...)

Response to the events of life is solely ones (our) responsibility and this is what determines what the Outcome would be.

Here's an instance

Two broke guys A and B got a helper who gave them both #10,000

Guy A being a very greedy guy complained and murmured that #10,000 was never gonna be enough for him and what did he do with it? He squandered it on drinkings, flexing and at the end of the day he got back to being a broke guy.

Guy B knew quite well that the same #10,000 would never be enough for him, he appreciated the giver and went on his way to invest the money into a small business which grew with time till he become comfortable and could afford whatever he wanted.

Now, the same thing happened to two different people A & B, #10,000 was given to both (Event of life) but what happened to their outcome? They both had it different and this was because they both responded to it differently

Let's always be optimistic and have a positive outlook of happenings around us and in life in general.