Mostly, we are emotional people ... nobody can say they are free of emotions. In fact a good many people live their life purely on the basis of their emotions.... their likes and dislikes.
A life purely on the basis of one's emotions can be disastrous sometimes ... especially when they are based on our negative emotions. Listen to what Pushpa told me. "I really care about Manisha. In fact I am very attached to her. I feel I need to see her everyday. She is very loving and accommodating. So I used to go to meet her everyday. I used to barge in at anytime, and would stay on for hours, talking about what would happen at my office. There was always so much politics going in my office, and it was very stressful. So I would just pour it all out on her. I never asked if she really wanted to hear me. I never bothered about what she might want to talk about. All I cared about was my feelings.
And whenever I would get angry at office, somehow I would become really rude and impolite with her. She never said a word to me because she thought I was going through a difficult time. One day I took it too far… I was really rude. She did not say anything to me at that time. Later I forgot I had been so rude and wanted to talk to her on the phone. She simply quietly said "I will not talk to you now. I need to be quiet". I still did not consider her feelings at all. After all, I wanted to talk. So I picked up some silly issue to fight about. She simply cut the line. I was confused – why should she do that? How dare she do that? I wanted to talk. Could she not understand? How rude she was. I repeatedly tried to call. She simply would not pick up the phone. Actually, she had gone to sleep. But, I got into a rage and shot of some rude SMS's. Next day one of her friend's called and I told her friend, "O Manisha, I never want to have anything to do with her…. " etc etc.
That was the last straw I think for Manisha. She never spoke to me for a long time again. I lost a good friend for some time. I really missed her. I got so much genuine affection and care from her. And I took her for granted. I never thought about her feelings at all. I just acted out all my emotions… God! What a mess I created… and for a long time I thought she was to blame.!!"
Puspha made the mistake many of us make … of simply rashly acting upon our negative emotions, taking them to be true. And Manisha made the mistake of consistently allowing her to do that … without making her responsible for her actions.
Our emotions arise purely on the basis of how we INTEPRET an event, not really on what the event is. In the above incident, Pusha intepreted that Manisha is not picking up the phone to reject her…. and because of her interpretation she flew into a rage. Actually Manisha, did not pick up the phone, because she had gone to sleep!!!
Relationships mostly get spoiled because of our negative emotions and the consequent behaviour. And our emotions or feelings arise because of the way we interpret events, rather than the event itself.
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