The Story of a Bank Heist and You.

Reading time ~ 7 minutes

Let’s start with a Thought Experiment.

Imagine that you recently got some furniture repairs at home, and the carpenter insists of getting paid in cash only. You’ve been lazy to go get cash from the bank for the past week, but since the fellow is going to visit this evening for his payment, you reluctantly go to the ATM kiosk which is put up outside your Bank. However, the ATM is out of order that day.

Since you are anyway at the bank, you step inside and notice that it is not crowded. There are only a few people in the line to withdraw cash, so you decide to wait and get the cash you need the ‘old school’ way (i.e., from a bank teller!). While you wait for your turn, you look around. There are about 30-40 people in the bank at the time. You see a young mother trying to control her toddler. You notice a bank staffer explain a senior citizen couple on using its online banking facilities, so they don’t need to visit the bank for every little requirement. Just then, another bank staffer taps you on the shoulder and when you turn around, he excitedly distributes sweets to you since he recently became a father! You congratulate him; and as you eat the barfi he just gave you, you remember the day you yourself became a parent.

Suddenly your train of thought is broken by a commotion at the door. That’s when you see, to your horror, that a person is threateningly wielding a gun at the teller demanding cash from the bank’s vaults! Fortunately, the courageous security guard of the bank quickly subdues the robber with his quick thinking and wit. But during their ensuing tussle, one shot gets fired.

Just ONE shot.

Unfortunately, the single shot that got fired pierces through your upper left arm from the front; and shatters your bone in the process. You cry in pain; and are rushed to the hospital where you get immediate treatment.

The doctors remove the bullet from your arm; and do an operative surgery to fix the bone. Try to imagine this entire chain of events as vividly as you can. Now imagine that you lie in your hospital bed (alone and awake) after the surgery that night.

You’ve just been told that it will take a few weeks for your arm to heal, and several months or perhaps even a few years of Physical Therapy for the arm to get back to near normal.

You only have your thoughts for company. What thought pattern do you see?

Scenario #1:

Are you angry that the ATM machine was not working that day? Or are you angry that you didn’t withdraw the cash earlier when you had the chance? or angry at the carpenter for not accepting payment over Google Pay (despite you requesting him to)? If he had, you wouldn’t have gone to the bank in the first place. Perhaps you’re cursing your luck. Why did the robber choose that very bank? Or thinking “Why didn’t I lay down on the floor? Maybe I should never have taken that barfi. It momentarily took me back memory lane, and I was not fast enough to duck”. You curse that you may now need to cancel the upcoming vacation that you were planning to take (after a really long time)! You think “What rotten luck!”  You then remember all the bad things that have happened in your life and lament. “Oh! why do bad things always happen to me?” You can no longer sleep, and you’re awake till late at night. Your body gets tired, and as you are about to sleep, you sneeze, the shoulder shakes and you feel a spike of pain through your body. You swear under your breath. The effect of the pain killer medication is wearing off; and sleeping now becomes even more difficult. You swear again. This time, a little more loudly.

Or

Scenario #2:

You thank your stars that the bullet only hit your arm and not anywhere else. Six inches to the right, and it could have pierced your heart! If you’d ducked a little more, it could have shattered your skull and your kid would lose a parent. You are grateful that it was only one shot that got fired. Had it been several more rounds, who knows how many others who might have been injured. Your thoughts race towards the bank employee who just had a baby. And to the mother who now must be trying to put a very scared little toddler to bed. You softly thank the brave security guard, who risked his life (with his meagre salary) to tackle an armed man? You think “Who does that these days?” And you make a mental note to thank the guard personally by taking a special trip to the bank once you are out of the hospital. You scroll through your phone and find dozens of messages from concerned family and friends. You swim in thoughts of gratitude and peace; and doze off into the night.

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I hope you did the thought experiment in all honesty. Which thought pattern did you see yourself in?

Maybe it was not either of the extremes, but you might have leaned one way or the other. However, did you realize that there was only one fact? The fact that you got shot. Everything else was a story that was woven. It was just a lens through which that fact was later perceived. Nothing else. Your perception is not the reality.

I read this story in the book called “The Happiness Advantage” by Shaun Achor. The powerful message that the author conveys is that “The story we tell ourselves shapes our reality.” And it could just be a Key to unlocking Your Happiness.

Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, has said “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.”

Kristin Neff has developed a formula for suffering. She says that Suffering = Pain x Resistance. She says the suffering is going to increase so long as you try to resist it. Of course you have been shot. It is going to hurt. But why do you want to suffer because of something that happened in the past? The sooner you are able to remove the “resistance”, the better it will be for your healing.

And that takes me back to all the philosophers. The Stoics, the Yogis, the Buddha and even the new age thinkers such as Viktor Frankl or Steven Covey. Every single one of them states the same thing. How you respond to a situation is the only thing that is in your control really.

One of the fundamental Tenets of Stoicism is that “Nothing that happens outside of us determines how we feel. It’s our opinion about what happens to us that dictates whether we are happy or whether we are sad.”

Someone may feel romantic when they see a full moon and remember the wonderful date they had with their better half. Someone else, on the other hand may feel haunted with a full moon; and think about the horror movie they watched recently. Remember, the full moon is just a full moon and nothing else.

Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor, said that “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Another Stoic Philosopher, Epictetus, has said “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

Ryan Holiday, the author who wrote the book “Obstacle is the way” talks about this interesting story of two brothers who had an alcoholic father. Holiday writes “One follows in his father’s footsteps and ends up struggling through life as a drunk, and the other becomes a successful, sober businessman. Each was asked: “Why are you the way you are?” The answer from both is the same: “Well, it’s because my father was an alcoholic.” The same event, the same childhood, two different outcomes. This is true for almost all situations—what happens to us is an objective reality, how we respond is a subjective choice. The Stoics—of which Epictetus was one—would say that we don’t control what happens to us, all we control are our thoughts and reactions to what happens to us. Remember that: You’re defined in this life not by your good luck or your bad luck, but your reaction to those strokes of fortune. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”

I like to drive home the point with a fun science experiment which I do with my 6-year-old son during his bath-time. All we need are two mugs and a bucket. The mug on the left is filled with hot water (not boiling water), while the one on the right is filled with ice water. We keep the bucket in the middle with normal room temperature water. Then we dip the left hand in the left mug (which has hot water), the right hand in the right mug (which has ice cold water), and we start counting. At the count of 30, we will put both hands in the bucket at the same time. This is the part which my son loves. He knows that the water in the bucket has the same temperature. Yet his left hand finds it cold, while his right hand finds it hot.  

What happens physically in this experiment happens all the time mentally with things that we face every day. If you stub your toe, you stub your toe. That’s it. It will pain, but don’t need to suffer over it in future.

FINAL THOUGHTS

You require years of hard work to get a perfectly chiseled physique. Similarly, you need years to develop an attitude of resilience to choose your response. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has said “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Samartha Ramdas also echoes the same concept when he declares: देहेदुःख ते सूख मानीत जावे (i.e. Embrace your suffering, & it will not bother you).

The Mandalorian creed from Star Wars say, “This is the way”. I would say “This is the only Way”

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^{Cover Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash}