Lessons We Didn’t Expect: What Recent Dramas Teach Us About Life

Our deeply polarized society, the recent election, and even the cancellation of some of our favorite shows are hitting us hard.

But the good news is, watching TV isn’t just an escape.

Some of our favorite dramas hold unexpected life lessons, and you never know what you’re going to learn when you tune in.

The Irrational Teaches Us How To Stay Steady In Difficult Times

NBC’s The Irrational is one of the most entertaining cozy mysteries out there, but it is also so much more than that.

Alec Mercer literally teaches every week. His neuroscience lectures focus on different aspects of the brain’s workings, often including demonstrations and experiments to illustrate his points.

Alec isn’t specifically teaching life lessons, but his exploration of neuroscience does teach his philosophy of life, which is based on his understanding of the brain.

Alec lives his life by two guiding principles:

1. The brain processes emotion before rationality, so you have to identify your emotional triggers and put them aside
2. Trauma makes the brain want to protect itself, but life must be lived to the fullest

I find the first principle to be an especially helpful life lesson, even if I haven’t fully mastered it yet.

It’s easy in tough times to get overwhelmed by emotion and make decisions that aren’t in your best interest.

Fear is an especially strong motivator. It causes people to go into flight or fight mode, often making decisions that ultimately hurt them because they’re trying to protect themselves.

Alec’s lecture on The Irrational Season 2 Episode 1 about emotional triggers and his suggestion to wait them out before making big decisions are nothing I haven’t heard all my life, yet they hold more weight coming from a TV character.

That cooling-off period is something I consciously try to do now.

Alec doesn’t just teach these lessons in his lectures.

He lives his life by them.

He demonstrates the principle of living fully despite what life has thrown at you every day just by getting up and doing his job despite the trauma he’s suffered.

He is also one of the happiest characters on the show despite everything, while this season Phoebe is struggling because she chose safety over continuing to take risks with Alec and she’s not happy with her new job.

Phoebe’s story contains subtle messages about the cost of choosing safety over living fully, and what the consequences of that are.

Lately, The Irrational Also Contains Life Lessons About The Cost Of Doing The Right Thing

In the current political climate, doing the right thing has become more important than ever, but it’s not easy.

The Irrational offers helpful life lessons here, too. I especially liked Phoebe and Kylie’s conversation on The Irrational Season 2 Episode 4.

After Phoebe realized that her new boss was plagiarizing student work, she debated whether to come forward, and Kylie told her that she’d recently learned the hard way how hard it would be, which she knew well because of her own choice to stand up to the hackers in her coding group, who then rejected her.

People will reject you, and those in power will use it to hurt you.

No, that’s not one of the life lessons I’m talking about. Kylie’s deeper point was that you have to go in knowing what the consequences are and choosing to do what’s right anyway.

That awareness makes all the difference. It’s easier to advocate for what’s right if you’ve already evaluated the consequences and made a plan to deal with them.

Watch The Irrational Online

Found Teaches Us To Protect Our Joy

Found is an important show because it includes a group of mostly-Black women who stand up for those missing persons who fall through the cracks of the system.

It also teaches us some important life lessons in how to navigate trauma.

In the days following the Presidential election, I keep returning to a scene from Found Season 2 Episode 5 where a teenage Gabi tells Bella:

If we allow Sir to steal our joy now that we’re free, then he wins. And we don’t want him to win.

That’s a profoundly important message in these frightening and depressing times. I would argue it’s the same message my candidate espoused but in a different form.

In any case, it resonates strongly with me right now, and remembering not to allow anyone to steal my joy has helped me stay steady and move forward during these difficult times.

Watch Found Online

I Have Learned So Many Life Lessons From Blue Bloods

One of the many reasons I’m heartbroken that Blue Bloods is ending is that there is so much to be learned by example from the Reagan family.

Its heroes are flawed, relatable people who stand for something.

Blue Bloods imparts the biggest life lesson each week: know what you believe in and stand up for it.

Frank lives his life as a man of integrity or tries to, and that means that political considerations such as optics don’t usually figure into his decisions.

He is intimidating to his adversaries, yet they respect him, and that comes from him knowing who he is and what he stands for.

There’s no bigger life lesson than that.

There are other life lessons in each episode, of course. There’s not a week that goes by that I don’t find at least one Frank Reagan quote that I want to stick on a meme.

His exhortation to Mayor Chase to “serve this city, not your egos” is one of my recent favorites.

You can also always count on Henry for life lessons. One of the most beautiful things about Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 11 was his advice to Jamie about the car that some criminals had stolen that had once belonged to Joe:

Never hold on to material possesions. Worry about what you can’t replace.

That’s something important to keep in mind.

During difficult times, it’s easy to cling tightly to our things because they give us a sense of safety and security that we’re badly missing, but that doesn’t help anything.

Watch Blue Bloods Online

Over to you, TV fanatics.

What life lessons have you recently learned from your favorite dramas?

Hit the comments and let us know!