Stop Being Extra!

“It is not worth talking about a slip of the foot as if it were a fall.” (Efik)

There’s always someone in your life who finds drama in the tiny things. These small inconveniences are treated like massive obstacles and everyone around them are expected to rally with pitchforks and torches to defend the slight. My mother is actually notorious for these outrages. Her day will be ruined if she doesn’t find her parking space in the area she usually parks. If that happens, that’s fifteen minutes of listening to her complain about how she always parks here and how much of her work day is affected by not having this special parking space. <insert eye roll>

Woman, you have a car and a job. Relax yourself.

Ever trip, but you didn’t quite fall? You look around to see if anyone saw you and you keep it moving. (With a little bruised ego at worst.) Ever trip AND fall? Skinned knees, twisted ankle, cuts and scrapes? There’s no bruised ego here; there’s a bruised body.

I understand that everyone faces their own troubles in life, but we often fail to put them into perspective. Once again, social media gives us the platform to fuss about the minutiae and an audience to coddle us about it. There’s nothing inherently wrong with discussing the small problems, but once every small problem is treated like the apocalypse—maybe a pause and a deep breath is more useful than a ten paragraph diatribe about the coworker who didn’t greet you in the morning. A slip of the foot is not a fall. It’s a minor setback.

Talking of the slip of the foot like a fall does only one thing: it makes the person look like The Boy Who Cried Wolf. When the real fall comes, and it comes for all of us, few people will have sympathy or patience for us. Sometimes, those little setbacks aren’t worth discussing—it drains you and it drains your support system. Grumble to your clumsy feet and be thankful you didn’t fall.