Life here in the 21st century is full of extremes. We have extreme sports, extreme makeovers, extreme home makeovers, extreme couponing, and a variety of extreme reality shows with extreme challenges. We are surrounded by people exhibiting extreme behavior. Social media feeds this frenzy by giving us a place to truly live our lives out loud. Viral videos feature everything from folks expressing their opinions in crazy rants to all of those over-the-top marriage proposals. Even the stuff of our ordinary daily lives is so often over-exaggerated that we begin to lose our emotional balance. This constant roller coaster of drama is exhausting!
How do we get off of the roller coaster?
I think we need to start by looking at why we tend to over-dramatize life events. At the heart of this is usually is the desire for attention. Positive attention is the most desirable, but we humans will take negative attention over no attention any day. So we exaggerate a little (or a lot) in order to maximize our return. This might work for a while, but eventually you will lose your credibility. Remember the story of the little boy who cried wolf? Someday if you really do have something going on that deserves a lot of attention, it will be harder to garner that due to your past practices.
Instead of over-dramatizing the events in our lives, let’s focus on putting them in perspective. An attitude of gratitude goes a long way in helping us with this process. As my mother used to say, “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill!” Just this last week I had an opportunity to put this into practice. We were having car trouble, again, and the list of repairs was long and expensive. Initially, I was upset. But then I began to look at it from a different perspective. It is just a car. We weren’t making decisions regarding a treatment plan for a life-threatening illness. We weren’t dealing with a life-changing crisis with one of our children. It is just a car. Whew! What a difference that made for me in dealing with the situation. I am happy to report that God provided, the car is repaired, and life goes on.
Letting go of the constant drama can free us up to really enjoy our lives. Refuse to be a “drama mama” and embrace all of the good things that God has given you today!
“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” ~Colossians 3:15a