That’s serious stuff. Dropping avocados is not.

The cashier bagging my groceries accidentally dropped a few of my avocados on the floor.

No problem. Happens to everybody. They’re just going to be mashed into guacamole in twenty minutes anyway, right?

But in that moment, here’s how the woman responded.

First, she slammed her face into her hands and started berating herself for being an idiot.

Next, she yelled out for one of her coworkers to come over and complete the transaction.

Third, she slumped over to the stool at the other cashier station and launched into a monologue about how she just couldn’t handle work today and needed to go home.

Fourth, she shook her head and stared at the floor in disgust while the other woman handed me my bags.

This entire scene happened over the course of two minutes. It was remarkable to see just how quickly someone could physically and emotionally collapse under the weight of such a simple, human mistake.

Naturally, there is no way for me to know what else might have been going on in that woman’s life at that moment. Everyone is fighting a battle that we know nothing about, and so, for or all I know, those avocados might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

That could have been the culmination of numerous stressors that simply pushed that cashier over the edge.

And we’ve all been in that situation before. Particularly at work. One moment you’re hanging by a thread, and the next moment some innocent mistake comes along and unravels your entire soul. Totally sucks.

Anyway, enough being compassionate. Here is my real theory on what was going on.

That cashier, like so many people, isn’t very good at enduring ordinary misery. She has a low frustration tolerance.

This trend is more prevalent than most of us realize, because we live in a culture of cortisol, where everything is a manufactured emergency and everyone has become neurotic. It seems like the smallest things snap people into a state of speechlessness.

We get exasperated over chickenshit, to the point of an inability to perform simple actions. And we’re not talking about full scale traumatic events here.

Goleman, the founding father of emotional intelligence, coined a term for overwhelming experiences, calling them amygdala hijackers. The brain’s amygdala, which runs our fight, flight or freeze response, jumps into action without giving you a chance to mull things over.

Your poor neocortex, the home of impulse control, doesn’t stand a chance.

That’s serious stuff. Dropping avocados is not. That’s just ordinary misery.

A regular, human, everyday happening that tests your patience and ability to cope with reality.

If you find yourself unable to cope with such difficulties, you’re not alone. But you’re also not functioning like a mature adult.

It’s time to choose more wisely and rationally for yourself. It’s time to learn how to tolerate the distress of most upsets without fragmenting.

Remember, pressure is a choice. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you at more risk of developing problems than someone whose outlook is rational and balanced?