The Daily Vulnerable by Chude Jideonwo: Stimulus – To Respond or Not?

Responding to stimulus comes automatically. That’s what we often do as humans; it’s wired into our genes, in a manner of speaking. We encounter stimuli, we respond.

Someone throws an insult, and it feels like the natural thing to do is to respond. Someone overtakes us, and it feels like the natural thing to do is to accelerate and overtake them back, or at least insult them. Even if you don’t reward ‘evil with evil’, the temptation just lies there that you have to respond; that every action must get a reaction.

It’s biology, even more than physics, straight from the competitiveness of our evolutionary origins – eat or be eaten, kill or be killed.

But we no longer live in the jungle, my friend. And we are no longer hunter-gatherers.

You should choose what stimulus deserves response.

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