Thursday, January 24, 2008

Drama, drama, drama...or...It's Not All About You (or Me)

There's been a lot of drama going on lately. And I'm not talking about Hillary/Bill and Obama!! No, I'm talking about people messing with others, picking on others, ganging up on others...grown women acting like high schoolers! And even that may be giving them too much credit. Correction: us too much credit.

On the other hand, I can think of a few instances of the same happening IRL lately, too. Do we ever really grow up?

(pardon me my Carrie Bradshaw moment.)

And then I heard about some real drama. Real life drama. A mother, a friend of a friend, learned that her daughter has cancer. What was thought to be a sinus infection has turned into something that they will be lucky if her daughter lives through.

What struck me - because I'm not about comparing life stories and who has it worse - is what my friend told me about her son (who is best friends with this girl). Her son had been complaining of late of how moody the girl had been, and an elementary-friend type squabble ensued.

Of course, this girl was "moody" because she was in terrible pain. It had nothing to do with the friendship, of course, but how was this boy to know? How are we ever to know how much of it is truly about us?

I thought back to my own friendship squabbles, and how many times the squabble wasn't really about the issue we proclaimed it to be. How either I was going through something, or my friend was going through something, and we made targets of each other instead.

I joke a lot about it being all about me, or not...but I would venture to guess that, more often than not, it's not all about us even when all evidence points to the contrary.

It reminds me that we do need to take a step back, time out, and consider the very real possibility that what seems to be much ado about nothing usually is...or, at the very least, about something entirely different.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What the hell do you MEAN, "It's not all About Me?" Clearly you don't know who you are TALKING to. There-I am over it-but hey, who is Carrie Bradshaw? : ) Good post, April.

Anonymous said...

The human psyche is a complicated thing. Who knows why anyone acts the way they do on any specific day. Pain, stress, and completely unknown factors all have influence on moods. Unfortunately human beings also have a tendency to think that everything is directly connected to them, so one thing said or done to someone that may have absoletely nothing to do with someone can be easily taken the wrong way and in turn effect THEIR mood. And when a butterfly beats it's wings in china their is a hurricane in Florida. That got a little convoluted - I hope you get what I am saying. :)

April said...

Kate - yes, I agree with you! I wrote this for myself as much as anyone to remind me that I should try not to take personal offense as my first reaction, you know? Or at least, understand that it's a first reaction and then let myself calm down a little and recognize that, while I may have been offended, that may not have been someone's intent. Or that I may have offended them without intending to...in other words, that it's always worth searching for other explanations as well instead of just accepting my first reaction as the absolute and only truth. Now I hope you get what I'm saying :)