Incident Distraction Reaction

We’re spending our day without thinking and then an incident occurs. It could be a child that has fallen off his bicycle and now has gravel in his knee. Or it could be the closing of the department where you have worked for sixteen years. 

Incident Distraction Reaction

Incidents have a way of happening. You’re not expecting them. For the most part. Because we all like our lives to float along without the gods of disaster noticing us.  

If we just continue to do our thing the cake that’s halfway through baking for the first order for your new birthday cake business, would not be a problem. You’d simply turn off the oven and get your gravelly kneed child to Emergency. But that is not how we humans are designed. 

Depending on how the rest of our life is performing, we might grab that son-who’s-just-like-his-crazy-father and scream at his dirt covered face because we are afraid of how much worse it could have been. Or you might raise your zen-like self off your yoga mat and speak in a soft comforting voice. (I'm only guessing that more likely, you’re somewhere in-between.)

Because we’re distracted in the life we’re floating through, don’t forget. We might be busy, but it's our boat, our life, we even believe that we are in control.

Courtesy Pixabay - Ben-Kerckx

Our days are planned, we have a checklist and we’re determined to plug right through. There are things to be accomplished at home, at work, for your aging parents or for your sister who’s finally admitted that her daughter is an addict. When and how can you get your stuff done if you now have to spend two hours in an Emergency waiting room? You get a chance for a reaction.

Whom are you going to call for help?

Then as it turns out, it’s a slow day for accidents and your son realizes that this incident could garner him some ice-cream on the way home and is seen by a Doc almost immediately. And then it's up to you what your reaction will be.



You turn away as the professional reaches for what looks like household tweezers and removes, one, two, three pieces of gravel and your eight year old asks if he can take them to show his friends. 

You, of course, now have some relief because seeing your brave little man has pushed aside the fact that you will have to dump the half-baked cake and start over. You know he is fine, you don’t want to scream anymore or need to sit cross-legged in-the-moment on a mountain top, you just want to hug your little boy and give thanks. He will not need to be cut open in surgery but may carry some impressive scars on his left knee forever.

Our reactions are always within our grasp, we default to what gives us what we want. It could be attention, it could be peace. We become our reactions. We react. Or not. (Tweet This)

And then you return home to find your husband’s car in the driveway. It’s still the middle of the day. Wait until he hears what you’ve been through already!

He's sticking his finger in the half-baked cake. He’s yanked lose his tie, there’s an overfull box on the kitchen counter, his blue shirt is crinkled, sleeves rolled up. The department he’s worked at for sixteen years has been closed down.

No more floating through life. It's reaction time. Again. (Tweet This)

Now tell me, what's your default when faced with an incident?


Keep looking. When you find it, make it better.  ©