This First Reaction

"... That's the trouble with us all; somebody tells us to do something and we act at once! We are all trained that way. The father tells his son to do something, and the boy jumps! It happens like lightning, that reaction to a command or impulse. What we have to learn to do is to inhibit this first immediate reaction. As soon as we are able to do that, you are automatically at liberty to do something else, that is, some other course of action."
(FM Alexander, in: Goddard Binkley, The Expanding Self, London 1993)