There is a space, an amount of time, between the moment we experience stimulus and our response. In other words, when something happens, we always have the freedom to choose how we react.
I was listening to a podcast by Srini Rao from the Unmistakable Creative recently and Srini was talking with Kevin Honeycutt. There has been a running theme lately with Srini and some of his interviews about the gap between stimulus and response. When talking with Kevin, that gap was compared to a gasket or a grommet. A head gasket in a vehicle engine allows one piece of metal to respond to the impact of another – it creates a gap which allows wiggle room. Without that wiggle room the two pieces of metal would destroy each other because they would hit each other hard enough to ruin their value. They would simply be acting upon each other.
I have found myself thinking about the gap between stimulus and response so often lately. I think it applies to what it means to be human. We all seem to be created with a “gasket.” We all have the power to choose our response to every stimulus we receive. The Constitution of the United States calls it our unalienable right. Dictators can’t take it away, parents can’t, governments can’t, and even God himself doesn’t seem to be able to take that freedom to choose away from man. I believe this is one of the things that inherently makes humanity amazing, when we realize we all have that gap and use it with great purpose.
Because of that gasket, other people’s actions can’t dictate mine. Can they jar me and cause me pain? Absolutely, but we have the space to choose how we will respond without blaming their actions for ours. Far too many of us blame our poor behavior on the actions of others. Blaming others for your poor actions forfeits that which makes us human, our freedom to choose. I believe every person on this earth was created to act, not to be acted upon. When we take advantage of that space between stimulus and response, when we think a moment before we choose how to act or speak, we demonstrate that which is most gorgeous and amazing about what it means to be human. We show that we are human.
As an American, I believe our defense and faith in this freedom to choose is what has made our country great. In our country we defend that gap, the gasket, our freedom to choose. Far too many in our modern world feel they have too thin a gasket or no gasket at all. But history has shown us, from Moses to Gandhi to Mart Luther King, Jr. that we are not here to be act upon, but to act. No matter our conditions, we have the freedom to choose and that is what makes us so beautifully human.
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