Aditya was working diligently working on his project but his boss started shouting at him for his trivial mistake. He felt bad and dejected. He left his office and went home. When he reached home, he saw his home in bit mess, he yelled at his wife for being good for nothing. His wife, Nandita, in turn felt unappreciated for all the work she did throughout the day and in the fit of rage she punished her only son, Akhilesh for wasting too much time on TV and mobile. Akhilesh was upset with his mother for not being able to understand him and he left home to spend some time with his friend. On his way, he dashed against another boy (Karthik)and he was about hurl abuse on him when Kartik looked at him, smiled, apologized and asked him, “Are you ok? I hope you are not hurt?” These words from Karthik cooled down the Akhilesh’s temperament and he responded cheerfully to him, “Never mind, I am ok”. Akhilesh spent some good time with his friend and returned back home.
When Akhilesh reached home he smiled and apologized to his mother and promised to reduce his screen time. This made Nandita feel happy and in turn she hugged Akhilesh and prepared his favourite food. During the dinner time when Aditya had delicious food prepared by Nandita and saw his wife and kid happily enjoying food; his anger melted, and he also relished the food along with them and felt bad for his behaviour towards his wife.
Whole family went to bed happy and contented.
I am sure this scenario is not very new to us. Each one of us at some point in time have experienced this. We often encounter this behaviour in our day to day life, where an act of not being appreciated is enough to kick start a ripple effect of negative emotions in similar manner where simple act of kindness and acknowledgement is enough to set someone’s day on a positive note.
In the above scenario, Karthik could have been part of this circle of negativity but he consciously chose to break it and replace his emotions with that of love, peace and compassion. On one hand Aditya’s boss started a circle of anger which kept on going till Karthik took charge of his emotions and deliberately created a circle of love and peace. One person became cause of dissatisfaction for one family which is he is not even aware of and another one replenished their bonds which even Karthik was not aware of.
In both scenarios, neither of them are aware of repercussions of their act but still they impacted the people around them in their own way. Choice is yours, what circle are you busy creating?