Welcome to the Loose Bloggers’ Consortium, where every Friday, some of us post on the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by me for reasons that will become clear as you proceed further.
This cartoon is what got me thinking of this topic to start with. As my regular readers know, I recently suffered a prolapsed disc resulting in what the doctors call “Right Ulnar Palsy”. In ordinary terms, it means that I only have partial use of my right hand. During the various investigations that I was subject to during the last three months, the stimulus/response ones with a hammer like device being used on various parts of my anatomy was amusing to say the least.
The stimulus was the prolapsed disc and the response was excruciating pain and eventual palsy. That was the physical part of the process. The mental part of the process was, how I reacted to the development, the response.
On the 10th inst. I had fresh EMG taken and had my final consultation with the Orthopedic Surgeon. He saw no hope other than surgery in the spine or steroid injections, neither of which was acceptable to me. In that case, the solution was to continue wearing a cervical collar for some more time, undergo traction twice a day with a gadget fixed at home and hope for the best. The surgeon confirmed that I will be without pain, but I will have only partial use of the right hand. I will be able to adapt to that and live a normal productive life.
At the end of the consultation, he expressed his amazement at my response to the diagnosis and congratulated me on taking it “very well”. I quipped “If rape is inevitable, might as well lay back and enjoy the experience!” He laughed so heartily that his receptionist popped in to see if everything was alright! I cracked a joke to the effect that, since nothing else can be done about it, I might as well learn to cheerfully live with it and get on with life. He laughed so heartily that his receptionist popped in to see if everything was alright!”
This is the place to insert one of my favourite quotations.
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and happiness.”
– Viktor Frankl
Another quotation to wind up my post – “Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts.”
-Leo Rosten
I know that I am.
How do you respond to stimuli?
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