I am a reactor . . .

meaning that I am someone who typically reacts to things (most of the time rationally, sometimes not :). Being a passionate person, I get emotionally involved, I usually have an opinion, and when presented with a situation, my way of dealing with it is to take some kind of action. So, needless-to-say, I was intrigued during a conversation with my soon-to-be-former department chair when I asked him about the most valuable lesson he learned during his tenure. He said, “You don’t always have to react.” Hmmmmm. Not familiar with that idea. He went on to discuss that he has found that not reacting at first, and subsequently seeing how things unfold, has saved him countless hours of work and many, many headaches. “Sometimes things work themselves out, sometimes the problem goes away, and sometimes someone else fixes it,” he said. Wow. Obviously, this isn’t a strategy we can use with everything (and he doesn’t either), but it might be something to ponder and use more often than most of us do now. If nothing else, perhaps waiting to react, instead of reacting immediately, might serve us well.