When I was a little girl, there were many things I wanted to be when I was all grown up.

At the top of my list were a writer and actress.I was determined that I was going to write a screenplay and star in the leading role.I used to dress up and put on little performances for anyone I could convince to sit down and watch.For a while I took vocal lessons so that I could try out for the part of Annie at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope. Sadly, no one remembered to take me to the audition, cheating me out of my shot at stardom.In junior high I tried out and landed parts in the school plays but was disappointed because I never got the lead. I was later told that I was awarded the secondary roles due to my ability to speak my lines with the appropriate foreign accent which not everyone could do.Regaining a little bit of my pride from her explanation, I put everything I had into those roles and I loved being part of that drama team.Over the years, I have fed my love for the dramatic arts by going to see various performances in Pennsylvania and in New York, although not as much recently.That's because I don't need to.You see, where I live, we have some of the best drama going on anywhere.Sometimes I wonder if they are all aren't auditioning for the Jerry Springer Show and they seem to be lining up almost as much as folks do to try out for American Idol.I don't know if it is something in the water or if the mind set of the local culture has made an inexplicable shift in direction.Whether it is teen and young adult (or older adult) battles waged on the cyberspace fields of Twitter and Facebook or drama played out on the streets that is later plastered all over the TV screens and printed media; the drama is plentiful and unyielding.I don't get it and I keep asking myself why.While there is not enough room in this column for me to explore all of the various scenarios that have played out recently, I would like to touch on one particular problem that seems to reverberate across the board and that is our inability to get along with one another.In James chapter four of the Bible, the first two verses sum it all up in my opinion."What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight."We have been conditioned to have a sense of entitlement and to falsely believe that it is our own individual opinions, interests and desires that matter and we have become easily willing to fight for it.How often during a disagreement do we honestly stop, listen and consider the other person's feelings and point of view? How strong is our need to always be right?We have the right to say virtually anything we want, although it isn't always right or even necessary to do so. We can simply choose to not engage.Whatever happened to "turning the other cheek" or letting something simply "roll off your back"?I tried to explain these concepts to someone recently who completely struggled with the idea to the point of tears at the thought of not being able respond to someone else's foolish words.The problem is that there is a huge price that is being paid for all of this foolishness.How much better would our communities be if we placed the needs and simple consideration of others before ourselves?What if we learn to be happy even when things don't go our way?What if we could admit to ourselves and then to others when we are wrong?What too, if we were able to forgive instead of holding on and keeping score?What kind of a difference would that make in council and school board meetings, in the classrooms and in the workplace, and on our blocks and in our homes?There is far too much drama going on around us on a daily basis that we can't control.What if we focus more on learning to control ourselves instead of trying to control others?What if we each try to be more giving and less demanding; more patient and less insistent; more selfless and less self-centered?What if we said "I'm sorry," and tried to be friends (or at least tolerant) instead reveling in and exploiting the fact we are not?All of these things are easy to do; we just have to make the commitment to do it and then sit back and reap the rewards.Save the drama for Springer.