Soap opera lives

I don’t like watching soap operas. First of all, the scenes are less than 30 seconds long. I haven’t had enough time to digest the scene and already there’s a new plot unfolding before my very eyes. The characters hardly look at each other when they talk. They’re always gazing into some far off place while talking to a person right next to them. I don’t get the point of looking the other way. If the characters are actually looking at each other, someone’s crying. Someone’s always crying in soap operas. Five days a week and the same character is bawling about the same thing. Most people have to watch their favorite soap operas everyday so that they won’t miss a single thing. I’ve discovered that even if you don’t watch the show for about a week, hardly anything in the story has changed. I can always expect to see the same tear-stained faces and hear the suspenseful music every time I watch an episode. I think that a little drama is good, but too much drama is suffocating. When it comes to the soap operas, there’s never enough drama. I can’t stand too much of it, so I’d rather not watch soaps.

Lately, whenever I ask some friends about their lives, they automatically start a long, winding elegy about their problems. They throw their hands up in the air, shake their heads in agony, roll their eyes and heave heavy sighs. The next day, they’re complaining about the same things. I always offer them my support and comfort them, but when it’s too much, I get tired. It reminds me too much of those soap operas. Sometimes I can already imagine melancholic music playing as they go on and on.

I always try to make it a point to talk to my friends. I hate it when I’m not updated on their lives, so even when I’m very busy I find time to chat with them. Whether we’re eating donuts for a hurried lunch, talking over the phone or just walking around, I like listening to the headlines of their lives. Some of my friends laugh and tell me that sometimes I’m worse than Boy Abunda when I start asking them for details, but they don’t mind. I don’t mind either! I love it when they start elaborating and telling me all about their latest conquest, math exam or embarrassing moment. I don’t mind when they ask me for advice or simply release all their pent-up feelings in front of me. When my friends need a hand, I’m always ready to be that hand — to pat them on the back, to pull them up when they’re down and even to give them a hard slap to send them back to reality.

I understand that people experience problems everyday. I find myself dealing with little and huge problems all the time. There are those days when there is just too much for me to handle. When that happens, my patience disappears and I end up being totally crabby to everyone. Sometimes, I just sit down and shut up, tired of trying to cope. I don’t feel like smiling or talking at all. People tell me that I seem to have a dark cloud above my head on those days. I’m sure everyone else has their own bad days.

Why do some people insist on making everyday a bad day? It drives me crazy how they make living their lives such a stressful, difficult task. When I get together with some people and we start talking, we start exchanging stories on how stressed we are or how insane our lives have been. It becomes sort of a contest —whoever is going through the most dismal events in his or her life wins. It reminds me of the scene in Notting Hill, where Hugh Grant and his friends compete for the last brownie by narrating their sad stories. After listening to each other’s present entanglements, we say things like, "That’s nothing! You know what happened to me?" then add our own stories.

Is it trendy to be down and out these days? Is it weird to be actually happy and contented? We were having a discussion in class the other day, and some people were saying how optimism could be a bad thing. If you’re optimistic, they said, you would often end up hoping for something that’s impossible. I go through a lot of problems, and I believe that it’s my optimism that actually helps me get through. I tell myself that things are okay and that they’ll eventually get better, and I plaster a smile on my face. My optimism gives me the will to keep doing the things that I do, to find solutions to problems, to get up when I am down. I’d rather be hopeful than just sit around and feel bad.

I read Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff for Teens by Richard Carlson before and I found it really applicable to how most teenagers are. One of the lessons that struck me was how people would let one little thing affect bigger things. For example, you had a good day when suddenly, your friend says something bad about your hair. When someone asks you about your day, rather than talk about everything else that happened, you tend to focus on your friend’s comment. You narrate the incident, re-enact, analyze and comment on it as well. What happened to the rest of the day?

Yes, life has its complications, dilemmas and difficulties, but life isn’t a big soap opera. Why waste life by concentrating on the bad things? Rather than dwelling on the grief that life gives you, keep your eyes on the brilliance of living your life. We give ourselves the opportunity to be happy, so let’s choose to see the bright side and to keep our spirits up. Let’s smile, laugh, sing, squeal, chirp, giggle, dance, leap, skip, cheer and celebrate. It’s only natural! Soap operas can be pretty unusual because people cry all the time, but no one ever thinks that someone smiling constantly is strange.