ARGUE OR IGNORE

It was the month of November when it happened… I was travelling to Kolkata when it happened. I had taken a taxi to reach Sealdah Station from Howrah. As we were moving, a bus abruptly overtook us. The taxi driver got furious. He started shouting… “let me get out and teach that bloody rascal a lesson…” He parked his car criss cross to the road and the lane being narrow, it completely got blocked. I said, “Leave it dada, there’s no use, stop,” but he didn’t seem to be listening. He got out of the car and started screaming at the top of his lungs at the bus driver. As obvious, we had created a huge jam behind us, as a result of the road being blocked causing problems to lot of commuters behind us. Amidst all of this, a thought came to mind. “Could all of this have been avoided?” “What if the driver had just simply ignored the bus driver?” What I thought is that, if the taxi driver had simply ignored the bus and moved on, no damage would have done… what would it have taken if to simply drive past, minding his own job? But instead, the driver decided to prove himself for his own ego, creating a problem, not just for himself and the bus driver, but for everybody who had to go down that lane. As my topic being the same, let me ask you a question. ‘Argue vs Ignore’. Who wins? Whenever somebody crosses us, it is our natural tendency to stop, have a confrontation in the objective of proving ourselves to them. The confrontation, if leads to a fight, what happens? The person who wins always suffers a considerable damage. Isn’t it a better strategy, if we ignore the stuff in such situations and simply concentrate on our own objectives to be fulfilled? A similar incidence of this sort happened, when I was in my final semester of my Engineering. I had a difference of opinion with my hostel roommate, which led to a heated discussion. It could have resulted in a fight, but as the final exams were going on, I refrained from this confrontation and simply ignored. My objective was to score good marks in my exams and that remained my sole focus. Imagine, if I had continued with my argument, it would have resulted in some physical and mental harm and also have harmed my final exams’ score. My career would have been ruined, just because of this nasty situation. When I was in Class XIIth, I had read a story written by Muhammad Ali in my English literature. Muhammad Ali, as we know, is one of the greatest boxers of this century, had won an Olympic gold medal. One day, when he went to a river site with one of his friends, he was surrounded and attacked by a gang of 5-6 Caucasians. Initially, Muhammad thought of fighting back as he was confident of easily taking over them. But he had a thought. “Even if I may damage them by a great extent, it is impossible for me, by the end of the day, to leave without any damage at all. I will also suffer from a considerable damage, even though comparatively less… but it can easily be saved.” He realized that it was no point proving himself to people like them, where he could be at loss as well. Thinking rationally, he and his friend decided to leave the site. What do we understand from this real-life incident? If he had chosen to fight, he would have apparently damaged them, but at what price? He would himself have been damaged or probably faced legal consequences of his actions. He not only left the site but his ego as well. It was an intelligent decision to just ignore them, and simply leave the place. No harm: problem solved. We always get to face situations like these in our life. People say things about you and try to bring you down. Will you always choose to go down the lane for an argument? You, arguing and trying to prove yourself to narrow minded people will not have any difference but will rather bring you mental stress and a great deal of wastage of time and effort. Is it just not logical to ignore them? If you do, you did the right thing. Cause you saved yourself a lot of stress, anger, disappointment and wastage of effort. So, before you do anything or decide to get into a confrontation, I just want you to think deeply. ‘Can this whole thing be avoided by me just walking away?’ Remember that “The less you respond to critical argumentative people, the more peaceful your life will become,” and then question yourself, ‘Argue or Ignore?’