People tend to life seriously and make situations overly complicated. Or is that just me? Does drama ever do anything remotely useful?
One approach I find to be effective in combating this is Rule #6, from Ros and Benjamin’s Zander’s Art of Possibility. The story of Rule #6 is:
An executive is in meeting at another company with one of their managers. They are sitting in the manager’s office, when suddenly the door burst open and a man comes in upset and shouting about an urgent problem. The manager says, “Peter, Peter, please remember Rule #6.” Immediately Peter calms down, says thank you and departs.
Soon after, a young woman enters, hysterical, hair flying all over the place, carrying on in frenzy about her situation. He responds, “Mary, please — remember Rule #6!” She says, “Oh, I’m so sorry”, apologizes and leaves the room quietly.
Then it happens a third time. (It always happens a third time.) At this point the visiting executive can’t keep quiet any longer and says, “Sir, I have seen three people come into this room in a state of uncontrollable fury, and then walk out completely calmly. Would you be willing to share this, Rule #6, what it is?”
The manager says, “Oh yes, Rule #6, very simply put is, don’t take yourself so damn seriously.” And so the executive says, “Oh, that’s a wonderful rule. What, may I ask, are the other rules?” And he replies, “There aren’t any.”
So… whatever it is, get over it, and don’t take yourself so god-damn seriously.