Few days back I was just analyzing one of the incidents happened with me. I was trying to analyse why I had reacted when someone intentionally provoked me? Why I couldn't maintain composure and handled the situation differently, without hurting myself? What's inside me that made me to react?
Even after breaking my head for few hours I couldn't came with any concrete answer. So, I decided to leave the issues and think about it afterwards & wanted to get my mind out of this. To do so I started browsing my younger sisters' Physics Text book.
I saw the Three Universal Laws of Motion given by Sir Isaac Newton. I thought that if the laws are Universal and can be applied to absolutely any system in the world, why they can't be applied to real Humane Life? After all that's the meaning of Universal.
I think that's the consultant's mind for you, getting the solutions from absolutely nowhere. So, the outcome of that experiment is this article.
Let us start the analysis. The first law of motion says that 'If the body moving along a straight line is not acted upon by an external force, it will continue to move along the straight line.'
How this first law of motion is analogous to our real life situations? As the law states that if the body is not affected by any other external force then it will continue to move in the given direction. How true it is! The challenges in life to push you absolutely on the limits; they help you building new competencies and acquire some new knowledge.
Let me give you a practical example. As a consultant I have visited number of companies and I have to deal with number of people at different levels right from Vice President to operators. I observed many people in different organisations who spent almost entire career on single machine or in single department. Interestingly they feel very proud of this. These people never try to multiple skills or improve themselves. They never push themselves on the limits. They themselves set boundaries for and never believe that they can cross it. These people are just like object which are not affected by any external force [or they avoid getting affected by it] and hence it continuous to move in the given direction.
Think about it! This reminds me to Management Guru Zig-Ziglar who once said in a speech that only 3 % of people get out of their comfort zone. Other people never try to do it and hence they under perform even though they are capable of doing most of the things.
The second law of motion states that the 'The force is directly proportional to rate of change of momentum and it acts in the direction of momentum'. It can be deduced from that the force acting on the body is product of mass into acceleration. This law implies that the rate of our success or rate of our progress is proportional to change of momentum i.e. the speed at which you are grasping the new things, the curiosity with which you are trying to learn new things. Remember what Albert Eisenstein said 'I do not have extraordinary intelligence but I more curious than others, that's it!'
You should try to learn something new everyday, try to respect the time and try to find new ways of doing same things. You should be hungry for knowledge. The information age, in which the rate of flow of information is unbelievable, we should not miss any opportunity. You should utilize the opportunities presented in the best way possible.
The second part of the law says that the force acts in the direction of the acceleration. This is analogues to our thought process. Our actions are initiated by the thoughts only. So, positive thoughts will obliviously direct the positive actions and vice-versa. The actions are only result of our thinking. (This is not a new thing, tons of material is available on this subject). The pithy is that we should think positively, so that our actions are productive.
The Third law of motion states that "To every action there is equal, opposite and simultaneous reaction." Remember, those fiery discussions in which most of the time we lose focus on he main issue and simply start reacting to the remarks or points made by the other side. The result: Chaos and spoiled relations.
Let me clarify that I am not of the opinion that you should not express your views, but you should not try to force your views and you should not expect that everyone will agree with you. Try to understand the problems from others point view. Ok. I don't want to give you a lecture on Behaviour Management.
In this law it is important to retrospect why do we react to something? Why do we react to useless comments? Why we always try to protect our image in front of others? Why we always try to prove someone wrong? Why we always try to prove our superiority?
Give yourself some time to find whether you are intentionally reacting to something or it's an automatic process just like programmed robot. I tried to find out this and I believe that as soon as someone speaks against your image that you have in your mind or that image that you have created in front of others, you react just like a programme robot. Now, the question arises who is the programmer of this software? I further introspected to realize that this reaction is controlled by something we call as the Ego.
In order to deal with it you realize deep in your heart and mind that you can control this process and the solution is to relinquish the Ego. It's not as simple as it looks. This Ego is very very subtle. For example "I don't have ego problem" is itself a manifestation of Ego. How to deal with this me? Well, I am still trying to find it out. Be cautious and don't fall in traps of Mind Games.
Well, I was talking about the Newton's third law of motion. The pithy of the law is next time you react to something; give yourself half a minute to think to what you are reacting? Why you are reacting? What's inside you that is provoking you to react to particular comment or situation? You should remember at that moment that there will be an equal, opposite and simultaneous reaction to your action.
I just tried to see Newton's law from an altogether different perspective and that resulted into this article.
Well, most of you are out of the college now but still you can use the three Universal laws of motion. It will be a great Tribute to one of the greatest scientists in the world- Sir Isaac Newton if we try to use these laws in more fruitful and innovative way, just like this.
(Though I got 96/100 in HSC in physics, the statement of laws (& the quotes) need not match word by word as long as meaning remains same.)
(Views are personal)