The Cockroach Theory

Cockroach theory? Ew. What's that?!
Well first of all, if you're a finance major or love investing in stocks, I'm not talking about the cockroach theory where one bad news about a company leads to discovering similar events occurring in other companies in that industry. The expression itself comes from the assumption that when you see one cockroach, it usually means there are way more hidden somewhere. For example, if a cosmetic company gets caught using harmful chemicals in their products but have been tweaking their reports as nontoxic, it may cause other cosmetic companies to be scrutinized and come forward for doing the same exact thing. But enough about that, this post isn't even about it. It's about the cockroach theory of self development.
Couple years back, I came across this story of a lady eating at a restaurant when all of a sudden, a cockroach flew in and sat on her. She started screaming out of fear. With panic on her face and a shrieking voice, she started to jump and flail her hands around in an attempt to get rid of the cockroach. Her reaction was so contagious, it caused everyone else at her table to be jittery. Just as the lady managed to get the cockroach off of her, it landed on the woman next to her- which basically meant it was her turn to shine and continue the drama. However, a waiter saw this and rushed to help the lady but instead ended up having the cockroach fall on himself. The waiter stood calm and composed as possible and observed the behavior of the cockroach on his shirt. When he was certain enough it wouldn't move, he grabbed it with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant.
Looking back at this story, it makes you wonder what was the cause of the entire chaos? The cockroach? Well, that couldn't have been it because if it was, why wasn't the waiter disturbed by it? It wasn't the cockroach, but the inability to respond rather than react.
Throughout much of our lives,

The word react has to do with a physical or emotional consequence caused by a stimulus such as cold, heat, trauma, etc or by spoken words, written words, or actions. A reaction is usually involuntary. The word response has to do with an action and is almost always a conscious decision with some type of thought process involved. The main difference between a reaction and a response is how you feel about something vs. what you're going to do about it. When you react, you give away power. When you respond, you stay in control of yourself. The first person we must have influence over is ourselves. No one can make us angry, frustrated, unhappy, or any other type of negative emotions; they can obviously say and do things that push our buttons and start the ball rolling, but it all depends on how you respond.