The Guilty

I am guilty of not being able to cook, as much as I did back in the days

I am guilty of not exercising as a regular habit as I did for a couple of months back, in 2023

But this is not about what more I am guilty of or what you/us may be guilty of…

This is about the film “The Guilty”

If you thought this was about a movie review, I’m sorry, it’s not.

But an extraction from the film.

Spoiler alert! There is going be a high-level revelation of the story in order to build up our conversation.

Here we go.

The movie starts at a 911 dispatch call center and the main flow of the story mainly revolves around a single call center agent who is a demoted detective who single-handedly manages a situation that he tries to resolve after receiving a call from a 911 caller (a lady)who apparently be in grave danger at that point in time. The whole story continues within one or two frames at the same premises, on the same floor with the same agent, and the whole situation he handles is through calls so just with audio and no visuals.

The climax is that in the latter part only, the agent realizes that his assumptions and instructions have not treated the correct person in the correct way but have just caused the death of the good person who is the husband of the lady (the caller), which in this case has tried to work on a remedy for his psychologically challenged wife who has killed her own son.

Stunned?? I was too. In fact I got goosebumps…

How many time we must have been guilty of our quick decisions or being impulsive .

I think many hands will go up, including myself.

We as human beings are prone to be judgemental, get angry, sad, emotional, disappointed, annoyed, irritated and reciprocate quickly without a second thought which disturbs our inner peace while making our surrounding unpleasant due to conflicts or bad repercussions.

Simply said, we look at things superficially but if we try to see things “THROUGH” or with a second thought, we can try to avoid negativity and take better decisions.

In the case of “The Guilty”, only option he had was to listen, believe and imagine things.

The same applies with our day to day reactions.

Summary is that things may not be as they seem to be.

So better we think in two to three perspectives/dimensions before jumping into a conclusion or making a decision on something.

Point 02, same applies with all the negativity we face on a daily basis.

Literally we are surrounded with it.

Starting from gossips, back stabbing, blame, criticism (excluding constructive criticism) ,work place harassments to bad stories, we hear , we see negativity.

In order to face these, again the concept of second thought can be beneficial.

A tool that is taught in one of my favourite books called “Think like a monk” (by a former monk, “Jay Shetty” is;

“Stop, Spot, Swap”

“To purify our thoughts, monks talk about the process of awareness, addressing, and amending. I like to remember this as spot, stop, swap. First, we become aware of a feeling or issue—we spot it. Then we pause to address what the feeling is and where it comes from—we stop to consider it. And last, we amend our behavior—we swap in a new way of processing the moment

-Jay Shetty

What is swap actually?

Well it can be you realizing someone just blames you because the person has been scared of a threat that can cause you badly without taking it as someone shouted at you!

or it can be that the person has been scared that you have been a threat to him/her. Rather than getting back to him aggressively, may be you can assure him/her nothing like that will happen or help the person to reach his/her targets. Or if the person is not someone approachable in that sense, better understand the situation and the reason behind, and move forward with yourself without trying to respond to him/her as there is nothing you can do about it.

At the same time, there can be many more reasons for the negativity that we encounter on a daily basis starting from childhood traumas to sickness, tiredness, or psychological aspects.

Better in each scenario, if we can understand the situation and work only towards our values rather than wasting our time and energy on anything negative.

Hope in this way, we can look forward to reaping out more positive outcomes and secure our inner peace.

Just wishing you a good week ahead filled with much much more positivity!!