Life is much too short to bring other people's drama or pain or chaos into your life. Your heart can break with them or you can feel sympathy or even empathy for them. However, to bring that into your own world and your own soul? Why? I may seem cruel or heartless, but truly, what purpose does it serve? How are you a better person for it? How does it enrich your life? Granted, not all moments work towards making you a better person, but if you are going to put so much of your emotional energy into something, make it count!
So, here is the example:
Tragedy strikes an unknown person or group of persons (like a plane crash) and you see the anguished families on the TV. You may tear up. You may feel your chest tighten and your stomach may knot up. You have a choice at that point. Say a prayer, send a blessing, make a wish for better for them, whatever your faith dictates . . . or . . . absorb this situation to the extent that you find yourself in the middle of it. Not really in the middle of it because you aren't a friend or wife or mother or sibling to the person/s struck by tragedy. You are, perhaps, as close as living in the same town. Maybe you live in the same metropolitan area. Maybe those people come from your home state. Regardless, you have no actual tie to the family and friends. This situation, while sad, is not in your realm of life.
The first choice, to say that prayer, leads to you being more aware of your surroundings or thinking twice about buying a product or taking a different route on a trip. You are safer. You expand your world a little because you are seeing a different part of the world by taking the surface roads home instead of staying on the freeway. For example, we lived in the DC area when the DC sniper was around. My job had me working hours that put me at risk of being at a gas station during the times that some of those shootings were taking place. We didn't know if the shooter was targeting people or randomly picking victims. I changed where I got my gas in the evenings so as to never be at the same place twice in case he was casing places. I also became very aware of my surroundings while pumping. When was the last time you really took in your surroundings while you wait for the gas pump to finish filling your tank? I saw neighborhoods that I never would have seen as I drove to find a different gas station at midnight. Found stores that I never knew existed. I could be scared of being shot or I could make it into a game for myself. My heart went out to the families of those taken unexpectedly by madmen. However, I wasn't going to let that turn into a fear that would grip me and make it impossible for me to leave the house. I had co-workers that made their husband gas up their cars because they were terrified. The thought of leaving home to get groceries caused them panic.
The second choice, to absorb it and take it in as if it was actually happening to you and your family, leads to where? to what? I'm not a psychologist, but I play one on TV, so lets look at this for a moment. You see the crying mother and you look at your own child and fear for her safety so you never let her out of the house unless you can control the situation. You see the crying wife and are terrified every moment of the day that your husband is out of the house. You see the crying teenagers and even tho you never met that teenager who paid the consequences of his decisions with his life, you let that sadness settle into your soul and you mourn alone (remember, you aren't actually living this sad moment with them) and you cry tears for the loss and you spend the next several days in a funk. Are you a better person for that? Or did you just lose a week of your and your family's life? Did you just miss out on your own life because you let someone else's tragedy so far into your life that you blurred the line of reality and reality TV (aka, the newcast). If the situation caused you to go to those unknown people with kind words and a casserole or to make a donation to a cause that would honor the dead? Awesome! You have turned this tragedy into a blessing for someone. You have moved outside of yourself. If, instead, you mope around and never move past the thoughts in your own head? Take a good hard look at what you sacrificed for someone else's tragedy. Did your spouse need your attention but you were too preoccupied? Did your kids need help with their homework but you were too sad? Did your boss consider you for a big project that may have lead to a promotion but you were a space cadet at work and he gave it to the person in the cubicle next to you? Did you get mad at God for His "unfairness"? Are you willing to risk your faith in God over someone else's tragedy?
Never let any tragedy not touch you, touch your soul. Always be open to the impact and be ready to think about how you can bless those who are actually touched by that sadness. Those who see others pain and laugh are a subject for another post (but I think it's an off shoot of the second choice) and I would never suggest that was healthy either. However, if you are going to make this internal and you are going to sacrifice so much of yourself, I recommend that you grow from it. Learn from it. Be a better person for it.
That's the heavy part of this. The "lighter" side are the people in our lives who are just drama and we absorb that into our days. Why? Does letting that other person's drama into our lives make us better? stronger? a blessing to them? 99% of the time, an unqualified NO! They wallow in their drama for the attention they get, positive or negative. Somewhere in their lives they were not taught to differentiate between seeking healthy attention and just having someone, anyone's attention. You respond, thinking that maybe there is something you can do to help. You are a good person, you have good intentions. You can fulfill that part of your friend that seems to be lacking!! HAHA!! and now you are Drama's friend. You go home and tell your husband of this or that and how upsetting the situation is. "How can her husband do that to her!" If your husband is like mine, he responds with, "that's horrible!" and then only remembers it for later so that he's not so lost in the conversation when you pick it back up again mid-thought. You lay in bed and get angry FOR your friend. You are at work and thinking of ways to encourage your friend and help her feel better. You are putting so much emotional energy into Drama's drama that you fail to realize that it's a.) not your drama and b.) she's on to her next drama. She may even tell you, without a hint of irony, "oh please, I'm past that!" and then tell you about the next bit of drama that is going on. You are exhausted. You can't keep up with her. At first you try. If you are a glutton for punishment, you keep trying. If you are half a step a head of your younger self, you catch yourself at that point and think, "I've been popping rolaids because my stomach is so knotted up over HER situation and for what??"
And that's exactly my point: For what? If you aren't better for it, why did you let that drama into your life? Never feel regret when you put up walls between you and drama. Believe me when I tell you, drama has plenty of friends and you need not worry about her ever being lonely.
