“High School is such a serious thing… these problems matter.” (note the sarcasm).

Even though you have to sometimes fight through Seth McFarlane’s political agenda to enjoy it, Family Guy is one of the best shows on television for this reason: It reminds us of how ridiculous we look when we take things that don’t matter way to seriously.  I am among the guilty party.

I hated high school because of the lens through which I viewed it.  It was my life.  If something bad happened, it was forever.  If something good happened, it was forever. In my mind, my problems could never be fixed, because my “problems” were of great significance, due to the inflated lens through which I viewed these “problems”.

To a certain extent, I have grown out of this unfortunate phase in my life.  I’m able to think more in the longer term than in the shorter, which provides me with more choices and a better understanding of how life works.  This is not to say that I’ve got anything figured out.  Anyone will tell you that every time you learn something new, you also learn a little bit more about how much you don’t know.  I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve learned how to evaluate certain situations and their significance and leave them behind me.

I understand that there are certain things that happen in high school that bring about legitimate grudge-holding.  Having your girl stolen from underneath your nose by your best friend is a crappy situation, and while I’ve never personally experienced a situation like that, I can imagine how much it would suck.  These kind of significant events obviously take a while to get over.  Getting your heart broken by some guy or girl is another unfortunate situation which obviously takes some time to get over (see previous post). But what drives me insane is when people hold grudges over insignificant events in high school.  It’s amazing the kind of drama people can commit to memory (you know what I’m talking about) for the sake of having “problems”.

So I guess here’s what I’m trying to say:

Get over it.  We were all growing up, we were all stupid and we were all oblivious to both of these things.  The people you hated in high school have probably turned into pretty cool people or they might still be assholes.  But if you can’t get over insignificant drama from high school, you’re an asshole too.  :)