Melodrama Part 1

Daniel Blanchard- Author and Speaker!

Drama, drama, drama! Drama seems to be all around us and all inside of us. It’s everywhere, and it’s mentally draining. Why is the world so full of drama? Why are we so full of drama? Is there any way to rise above this mental melodrama that resides both inside and outside of us and become the true sturdy and steady leader in mind and body that we were meant to be?

            In order to understand some of the drama that lives both inside and outside of us we need to understand some of our history as a species. Surprisingly, some of our vices, things that get us into hot water today, used to be virtues and helped us survive as a species in the past. You see, us humans were hunters and gathers for about 300,000 years. We survived on our own individual aggressive survival instincts. As odd as it may sound today, in the old days, being aggressive, selfish, and even somewhat brutal was a virtue when dealing with animals and potential mates. This selfish, individualist behavior helped our species to survive way back in the wild when we were still trying to stand up straighter and master the use our opposing thumbs to manipulate tools.

                Then along came the agrarian age, in which we moved away from strictly hunting and gathering and moved into the era of farming. Through the life of farming we formed civilizations with social norms and social pressures to comply and lose those old individualist ways. However, the agrarian pressure to live a more civilized life has only been around for about 30,000 years and it is sometimes overwhelmed by the 300,000 years of basic survival instincts.

                So, when someone does something out of the norm that others frown upon, maybe this bad behavior is really a left over relic from our rising as a species rather than our overall failure as a species. Hey, let’s give ourselves a break, it’s tough to be human; even if we are on the top of the food chain.

                So, what is the leadership advice here? Well, it's to know that we are all in this together and we are all struggling with our history as an imperfect species, as well as our own psyche. And that's why we all tend to occasionally act crazy and do irrational things sometimes. So, now that we know why people, including ourselves, don't always do what's wise, we now have taken our first step in pushing aside the crazy mental melodrama and are now moving forward towards being that sturdy leader inside of everyone of us!