"Proactive" a way of life.....

While I was reading Stephen Covey’s seven habits, I came across this really interesting definition of “Proactive”. It was the time one allows himself or herself between stimulus and reaction.
Being proactive was not, being the 1st one in line to take over the project.
Or booking your holiday well in advance.
Or buying your wife a lovely necklace, as a surprise a week b4 her birthday. (BTW Ram, I am still waiting for my birthday present.)
Being proactive in the words of Stephen Covey simply meant that, if someone calls you incapable, you don’t get on a mission to prove that person wrong. Because that would mean, somewhere, you believe him or her.
You believe you are incapable and now you are trying hard to change.
I once read this quote, which said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
I know whether I am capable, or not, and someone calling me incapable doesn’t make me one.
Viktor Frankl, the famous Jew psychiatrist, who spent a lot time in the Nazi refugee camps, spoke about the kind of humiliation and torture every prisoner there was subjected to. Their existence in the camps was that of one day at a time. Their nights, usually, were spent digging graves for the people they have shared a meal with.
Viktor Frankl, lost his wife and parents to this torture.

And over a period of time he realized, that only his body was being subjected to that torture, but not his soul. He allowed his imagination to expand.

While he stood naked in biting cold, being welted, he allowed his mind to imagine a huge seminar hall, with eager faced students who are listening to his teachings.
And slowly his freedom in the Nazi death camps, increased. He felt freedom greater than that of the prison guards. He even started counseling other inmates and some guards.
The reason I speak about Viktor Frankl, is because I admire him in his strength to be able to make a clear distinction between his body and soul.
We all want to be happy, I do, so does everyone. However, most of us allow our happiness to be defined by the action of other. This is being reactive. We wait for a stimulus which will bring out a happy reaction. What we don’t understand is that, we are responsible for our own joys and sorrows.
We allow our happiness to revolve around others.

It is important to understand that being proactive is not just a desirable quality of a team player (as defined by HR), it is in fact a way of life.

A life where you take charge and say, “I am of my own. No one else defines me. Neither my friends, or my family, or my job, or the car I own, or the house I live in.
I am and I exist, because of me.”