Being pretty socially avoidant most of my life, I assumed other people had it together and were sailing through life way more successfully than me. Well, Stranger, what people project on the surface can be covering up a bigger mess than you would ever guess.

As I have gotten out there more and gotten to know more about people and been doing that for some years now, I have been astonished at how much dysfunction and insecurity goes on in their lives that they keep hidden. I know a young family whose facebook wall paints a beautiful picture of a totally normal, happy, American family. Through relatives, I'm privy to the real story that encompasses enough over-the-top screwball drama that would qualify them to be on The Jerry Springer Show. I always thought I was weird and odd. That may well be, but most people - when you get to know them - have an awful lot of strange crap going on in their lives. You and I are not as different as we might think we are. Specifically, there is an awful lot of immaturity driving an awful lot of behavior by a lot of people who might strike you as really having it together.

With experience, I think we can grow in resilience. Our basic temperment is hard-wired, after a certain age. I will always tend to over-react and go off the deep end when I get upset over an interpersonal episode that upsets my equilibrium. But I now know that the upset is transient. It will pass. I've also seen where people who hurt me went on to reap what they sowed. They ended up getting hurt themselves way worse than I ever would have wished on them.