A gal I know, one of my favorite people, says that the reason she knew
it was working out well with her now-husband is that there was just no
drama.  There wasn't the "what does he think? what did I say right or
wrong?"  There wasn't any of that.

What's funny is that drama is created is your head, in her head, in his
head.  It's created.  It's spurred on by words, by meanings - meant and
unmeant - and it lasts.  Drama.

Drama at work gets called office politics and has a whole range of
excellently cathartic books devoted to it, such as Jerks at Work.

I vow 2005 to be a drama-free-zone!  It's so easy to get pulled into it
- by doubts, by second-guessing, by worries.  There's a fun, short
book, called "The Four Agreements" - the first agreement is to not make
assumptions - people just see the world differently.  And it's so easy,
and sometime effective to generlize - so easy that troubles and drama
can start when people simple may not state their assumptions.  I
practice this at work as frequently as I can recently - it's the
simplest things that you've read about everywhere - when you are about
to potentially get angry, you can first ask for clarification: "Did you
mean this...?".  Reflective listening, having been show to us in
personal self-help books and in business books, almost now seems to be
a cliche.  I'll repeat back to him what he just said, and I'll call
that technique "reflective listening," and it will have some
all-solving effect on our prior antagonisms.  But the funny thing is
that I've had this happen to me!  I repeat back to someone that I'm
working with in business - I repeat back what they just said, and then
say, "Do you then further mean this?"  And sometimes they just don't!
There is no need for that drama.

Years ago, I read a forwarded email with a bunch of advice, adn one of
the lines in it was "If someone asks you a question you don't want to
answer, smile and ask "why do you ask?"  More than anything, this
simple question allows two things to happen: 1) for you take a couple
of seconds to not get your anger, rush of offense up before learning
whether this really is a situation that needs it, and 2) for you to not
assume that the way you see the world by your interpretation of that
question is the same way that that person sees the world by his
interpretation of the same question.

In general, I really should clarify: "Happiness... is no unnecessary
drama."  No drama is no excuse to not live fully - it just means not
torturing yourself over things that may go your way in any case.

Here's another funny business situation - I used to debate every small
argument that I found logical flaws with - things that I believed would
not work in business, and I've yearas ago stopped debating items that
are smaller, that may not matter - it's just not worth it.  Seven out
of ten ideas fall away by themselves - no use to get worked up about
them.  If someone at your office has this business idea that seems
completely unworkable to you, and your initial comments don't change
their opinion, let it go for a while - most ideas never need to
resurface, and the bad ones will usually just fall away on their own.

And in non-business too: I have a great friend who has very firm views.
Sometimes, I'll make a suggestion one way or another, and my friend
will respond with an absolute "no."  And, oh man, is it hard to just
let it go!  But if something is another person's choice, and you've
already given your opinion, no use doing anything further.  If an idea
is good in the long-run, it will happen.  You should attempt to affect
only those things of CRUCIAL importance to you personally.  And those
that you can change.  Other people don't change their ways because you
want them to.
(Aside: There is a process of idea generation, take-up, jostling,
implementation, success-or-failure, and post-mortem.  For this idea
lifecycle, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I almost implore you, just as I implore
my friends and myself, focus on those ideas most crucial to your life.
You don't care really how a friend may butter her toast in inefficient
motions or how a colleague may word a particular email.
For those other ideas - the ones on which your input was not used to
change the ideas *before* those ideas were acted on and implemented -
let it go.  What is most fascinating in the general state of the world
is that if something was not supposed to happen, that person will
graciously come back to you and tell you that it was not supposed to
happen, the failure and post-mortem stages.  Both you and that person
can learn from those stages (that's such a tacky term - can learn from
that).  Specifically, I mean that both you and that person can figure
out how to make life simpler, more drama-less, once you figure out the
how/why's of some ideas not working.)
Happiness... is no unnecessary drama.