Mountains Out of Molehills

Law #18: Never underestimate people's ability to make small things seem bigger.

No doubt you've heard the phrase "Making a mountain out of a molehill".  You've probably never seen an actually molehill, so here you go.  There's even a mole in this one.  Anyway, I'm also pretty sure you know what the phrase means.  In short, it's taking something really small and making it seem like it's something really big.

Lately it seems that extremism is the threat du jour.  If you want somebody to be for or against something, rather than giving the facts and letting people make informed decisions people mostly resort to scaring you into their way of thinking.  It's also applied to other things like following certain social structures or performing a certain practice or even affecting things we purchase.

In my experience, nothing seems immune or off-limits.  Why do we do it?  Because it's kinda the easy way out.  Giving people facts, telling them the deal, ACTUALLY EDUCATING THEM is more difficult that just saying "That's bad and if you mess with that you're bad too".  Trust me, you've heard that line before and in some instances you were probably inclined to believe it.  It might have been because it came from someone you admire or it might have been the result of peer pressure.

So ultimately my point here is simply to do you.  Those folks who blow up small things and make them seem huge?  They aren't going away.  All you can do is think about how you view the world and decide for yourself how big a deal something really is.  And when you figure it out, have some pretty compelling reasons for thinking that way.