A very strange thing happened...

yesterday. I was witness to an unhappy scene. At the gym, one elderly, not at all fit, and rather opinionated man said something quite, quite personal and unjustifiably unkind to a girl, young enough to be his daughter. I was in the room with her - we were doing weights. I couldn't understand the language, but I understood from the tone that he was saying something not good, and this girl's reaction proved that. She gave him a piece of her mind. (I heard the conversation, quite aggressive in tone, going on in the main hall). I felt helpless I could not go and take this girl's side, because of the language issue. However, when the fool went off, and the girl came back to resume her weights, I asked her what had happened. Of course then I put in all at my command to help her wipe the incident off her mind.

These kind of unjustified things hurt. Hurt badly. And it is only human to react. The trouble is that when we do react to something unfair and hurtful, it does not leave us with a feeling of peace. There is always a vestige of bitterness that remains in the mind. And it takes time for this horrible feeling to pass.

Strangely, last night when I checked my phone for one last time before turning in, to my great surprise, I got this message from a colleague:

I felt as if the concentration to deal with this through the day (I was intent on getting this young girl back to her usual self), had, in fact, brought this message to me. I can think of no other explanation.

Neither good and bad situations nor good and bad interactions with people will have any power over us unless we go on thinking about them and so allow them to have power over us. Nay, indeed, we give them power over us. We cede the space in our heart and fill it with the thoughts that this power generates.

By investing bad interactions or bad situations with power, we let them take away from our self-esteem and self-worth. We need to be vigilant about this, and careful not to let this happen. Likewise, by investing good interactions or good situations with power, we must guard ourselves against becoming proud and arrogant...