As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sat in a Birmingham jail, he invented one of my favorite metaphors of all time. He said to be a thermostat, not a thermometer.

What a simple, powerful idea.

When we complain, we are a reflection of our environment. In those moments, we are the thermometer. Life feels like it’s happening *to* us.

When we take action, we are a thermostat. We actively radiate our energy into the environment, and in doing so we become the writer in our own story. We realize that, while we cannot control what happens to us, we control how we respond. We can be the warmth we want to see in the world.

“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.”
—Viktor Frankl

Stay warm my friends.

by Farideh Pouradam