What we have the most and use the least is probably our freedom. Nothing prevents us from breaking our shell and meet new people and discover new places, but we spend most of our time locked in our homes, and even if we go out, we get trapped in that 6-inch screen, rotting our lives.

Of course, you won't suddenly empty your savings account and buy a Vegas ticket just because you read these lines, but you can still take back control of your life without much changing your daily routine.

Reactive vs. proactive

We know the first; according to the action-reaction principle, every physical action must produce a reaction. However, this principle does not have to be as effective on humans as it is in soccer balls.

You can think of reactivity as passivity or impulsiveness instead, depending on the situation. If all you do all day is react to what's going on around you, including instantly clicking every notification on your phone, you live a passive life. Likewise, you are being impulsive if you immediately respond to every word and action that has the potential to provoke you (which may not be the other party's intention, which is usually not).

As for the second, the literal meaning of 'proactive' is:

Creating or controlling a situation rather than responding to it after it has happened.

Let's revisit the examples above: Let's say the trigger of the notification on your phone is a new WhatsApp message or a tweet. Whoever writes and sends that message is proactive. Likewise, whoever tweeted it. So anytime we check these, do we act reactively?

What then, back to playing snake on the Nokia 3310?

No. The first nuance is timing. If you're grabbing your phone as soon as the notification pops up, you're reactive. On the lther hand, if you have turned off your notifications and only read incoming messages or tweets when you are available, you are on the proactive side.

In the other example, let's get to that silly guy who left a sarcastic comment under your post. If you're checking comments hourly and getting furious as soon as you read that, instantly blocking him and deleting his comment, you're greatly reactive.

However, if you spend most of your time on social media not analyzing how your content is received, but by creating the content itself; if you can spare yourself at least 1-2 days to take action after reading comments (that don't contain any insults or profanity, but are only intended to provoke you) and then if you can show the greatness of giving a humble response, congratulations, you deserve the next kiss from Dalai Lama .

It's not easy, true. But as you can see in both examples, the key to moving from reactive to proactive is time. Nothing is as urgent as it seems in this digital age; take your time to before giving any reaction. We could come up with many more examples; I guess crypto traders know the difference between the two best. How many times have you lost most of your money by buying a coin at the top because of fomo, or by selling it because you panicked when it went to the bottom? If only you could stop, take a deep breath and wait a couple of days...

Remember; people who are governed by their emotions rather than their reason live under the rule of those who do the opposite.