Pause before you react

But let’s be honest.

It is so much harder in real life.

And the real test isn’t situations — it’s people.

Especially in a professional environment.

There exists a category of people — let me call them irritating people — whose primary talent seems to be finding ways to irritate others.

If they can’t find new avenues, they are more than happy to reuse old ones.

At times, it feels like this behaviour flows in their blood.

Some people retaliate only when pushed too far.

But these people?

It almost feels like they get uncomfortable if they don’t succeed in triggering someone.

My conscious intent is simple:

Don’t let them succeed.

And yet, in the middle of daily hustle — deadlines, deliverables, closing tasks — I sometimes unknowingly fall into their trap.

React.

Respond.

Engage.

And just like that, I become a participant in a game I never signed up for.

Lately, I’ve been thinking of a different approach.

What if I treat such interactions as expected?

What if I mentally tag these people as my trigger thresholds —

assuming that every interaction comes with a possibility of planned or predictable irritation?

Instead of being caught off-guard, I prepare myself.

Maybe these people can become my unexpected teachers —

forcing me to pause.

And pause again.

And pause a little more.

Until my nerves settle.

Until calm returns.

Until I respond — or choose not to — from a place of control, not impulse.

It’s still a work in progress.

But perhaps this is how practice really begins.

Logical lekhika