There are some frames of mind that are great to visit when you are creating, but terrible when you stuck in it and trying to just live your life. This is one of those.

When you’re working on something, throw all subtlety to the side and try heightening the emotion behind what you’re doing to operatic proportions. Nothing just happens in an opera, everything has a deep emotional meaning and is either the most wonderful thing in the world or the most tragic. This can make even a trip to the grocery store into a life or death struggle.

You know that person who cut in front of you in line? No longer is he just a rude person taking advantage of you, he is now a villain who is not just destroying your life. He’s insulting all of your ancestors and plotting your downfall. In fact, he has probably been sent by an evil god to torment you. What a tragedy! Will you stop them or silently suffer while they gloat?

Applying this kind of emotion to what you’re working on is not only going to let you more completely explore it, it can also stop you from holding onto to unhealthy emotions in your life. Pushing things to the absurd can both give them power and remove power.

Try this: Take a nothing story from your day, something with a beginning, middle and end, and retell it to someone using operatic emotions. Justify your behavior in the story based on the heightened emotions. Let the story either end triumphantly or tragically.

Use this ability until you can turn it on and off as easily as a light switch. Eventually, when you sit down to create any tiny situation in your life can become the fuel for high drama and transcendent art!

After all, who wants art that even the artist doesn’t really care about? No one except people who buy art for hotel rooms.