Overreaction

            Overreact: I do it all the time, I see other people do it all the time. It's what people do. We overreact. Sometime it's reasonable to react strongly, to be overcautious, to go above and beyond, but most of the time it's wasted energy and can even be dangerous ( a prominent example explained later). And it's tough not to overreact, I know: our bodies are trained to pick up little details, to send signals to the brain that things are happening, things are changing, but it's important for us, especially those with more life experience and know better, to restrain that overreaction, process the information first and then react appropriately. 



           Watching Game of Thrones Season 2 with friends.....another show with a lot of overreaction. Ned Stark overreacts to learning Joffrey's a bastard, Joffrey overreacts to Ned Stark's crusade, John Snow overreacts to being a bastard son, Robb Stark overreacts to Ned's killing (although, arguably a rational reaction), Daenarys overreacts to her husband's death by burning a witch at the stake and producing her dragons, etc. etc. And lots of those "overreactors" are now dead, in danger, or captured. Lesson here: Don't make a rash decision that will impact your life months and kindoms down the road.




               The George Zimmerman thing: I hate to be the politically incorrect guy or the oddball of the room or whatever you call it, but I think America is HUGELY overreacting on the George Zimmermann thing. I'm not a fan of George Zimmermann and I think it's really unfortunate that Trayvon Martin died, but there's worse people in the world that George Zimmerman. It's really unfortunate what's going to happen from this outrage, too: less people will want to become "volunteers" and safety personnel due to the risk of accidentally hurting someone. Sure, it may have been an intentional shooting, it may have been Zimmermann overstepped, but I think America's forgetting that someone's innocent until proven guilty. America preaches that all the time, but in a case so sensitive as this one I think that gets lost in the headlines and hoopla. Here's a guy, Zimmernan who called police before the shooting to report Martin as a suspicious character, indicating he was trying to go through the normal channels, doesn't have a criminal history (minor assault charges and other transgressions), but 2nd-degree murder in this case? Be objective, people, don't get lost in the moment. He didn't shoot Trayvon Martin with premeditiation, there was no motive for it. Overzealous, trigger-happy, overreactive, sure, but not murder. Don't do the exact thing that George Zimmerman did when he shot Trayvon Martin: overreact.


        Lawyers overreact. I sent a nice, friendly email the other day to an attorney about whether she had any information on a case she was working on: back came a 20-minute phone call that was much more of just a monologue by her about how she felt the email was objectionable, she was not going to reveal any confidences of her clients, how she felt like she was getting set up for something, why I was wrong, why what I was doing was "dangerous," made me feel like an awful human being when in actuality I hadn't really done anything wrong: just send an email. Non-lawyers (and lawyers, too, actually), just know this: Be careful of ANYTHING and everything you do around an attorney, because they will remember it, log it, and use it against you later as an admittance/ move for sanctions. Sigh. Welcome to the legal field.



        Fantasy baseball players overreact. This is a perfect time to do it too: early in the season, a few weeks in, hitters struggling, pitchers having a few bad outings: very easy for fantasy managers to lose patience and drop guys (Paul Goldschmidt,Kendrys MOrales) or pick up the latest hot trend (AJ Pierzynksi, Luke Scott) without giving it ample thought. It's only April, people. Don't make a rash decision that will impact your life months and fantasy championships down the road.



 Fantasize on, Robert Yan