“For every action, there is and opposite and equal reaction”
– Newton’s third law of motion
It was a monday afternoon back at my previous job and I was running extremely late back from lunch break and into a tedious and mandatory weekly meeting. Inconveniently enough, I was running only on two hours of sleep due to a night of insomnia. So I quickly prepared myself a cup of coffee to try to give myself my mojo back. As I was on such a rush, mindlessly I took a sip out of that ridiculously hot cup of coffee the very second after poured it. I cursed the universe and thought “great, my mouth feels like it caught fire for a moment.” I immediately went back to my office to grab a cold bottle of water hoping to sooth the pain. Needless to say I was now in a terrible mood. By the time I went into the meeting room, the meeting was over and everyone had left. My boss wasn’t in the greatest of moods either and was not at all understanding of my tardiness.
Throwing it back to a few weeks before that incident, I’d met a man during a night out with my friends. We had a couple of drinks together and seemed to have clicked really well. On the following days he asked me out to lunch about a dozen times, to which I had to decline the equal amount of times since I could never seem to find the time.
Fast forward to monday morning, I was debating on whether I should go back home to get some rest since I was heavily sleep deprived or grab a quick-lunch at the office, get my reports ready for the meeting to follow after the break but I picked up the phone and asked this person to meet me at a nearby restaurant. At last we were able to meet up again. Time flew by and for a second, I didn’t feel so tired anymore and unconsciously prolonged lunch break a little too long.
Then back to the coffee incident. And my angry boss. And the rest of the day ruined since I had to catch up on all meeting’s matters and left the office at around 10pm.
As I tossed myself into bed at around 11pm not giving a care in the world, (not even about changing into my pajamas) I tilted my head sideways for a second and took a glance at a book I had been reading on spacial orbits and recent missions to international space stations that was sitting on my night stand. My head began to revolve around my day and how the events unfolded. I quickly started thinking about Newton’s third law of motion. As I started to slowly fall asleep I couldn’t help but to think about how far away the ramifications of my actions have expanded and where the reactions of the decisions I’ve made in my life have extended to. Or what would’ve happen if I hadn’t switched from Interior Design to Marketing in college. Or if I was a man and had gone to engineering school like my brothers did so they could all one day attempt to become my renowned father. Or if I was my clingy dog right next to me who only demands food and love.
If I hadn’t met the guy, we wouldn’t have clicked. If I would’ve had the time go to lunch with him on different day of that week I wouldn’t have been late to the meeting, with a burnt mouth and a sour mood. And an annoying boss. And not ever hearing from the guy again since I was so angry that day I completely neglected him even so further on and OH MY GOD why did I do that? He would’ve been the one and we would’ve had it aaaaaaall.
If… if… if.
If what? What if? If we wouldn’t worry so much about the IFs we would definitely save ourselves so much time. But then again, if we don’t think about the IFs we cannot stop worrying about them. The IFs are here to stay. They’re not always so bad. We can control some of our actions, but they will still have an equal reaction.
Sometimes, the way we decide can be obstructed by external circumstances, and deciding may not always be the easiest of activities. But recent neuroscience studies have shown that actively choosing or decision-making caused changes in attention circuits and in how we feel about the action. increasing a rewarding dopamine activity.So regardless of the outcome, we are not exempt from decision and consequence. We can only “go with out gut” and accept responsibly the reactions to follow. I hope we all find it in ourselves to do so.
Till next time,
MM
Marie Momentum 