Others choose how to act towards me. 

I, in turn, also have a choice: 

how to act towards them. 

How others act towards me is their choice, a karmic decision that entails results. I too have a choice. I can react automatically without considering the consequences. And yes, even though this doesn’t feel like a choice, it is.

We reacted from habit. Habits are formed first by opting to do something, and by then doing it repeatedly. At any point, we can choose to change our behavior. For the most part we don’t, so we end up reacting automatically without considering the consequences. Instead of choosing to act from habits, a saner choice would be to consciously discern the likely future consequences of my actions.

Sound too complicated?

That it will take too much time when action needs to be immediate?

The time we take carefully considering how to react is nothing compared to the time in which we will suffer the results of our having acted rashly.