Mudbug Madness is right around the corner. It's a festival celebrating the art, culture, and of course the food provided by the little crustaceans that has been going strong in downtown Shreveport since 1984. During a typical festival run, thousands of pounds of crawfish are cooked up for our enjoyment. But what life lesson can we learn from them?

Don't jump into a pot of boiling water? Stay away from people named Boudreaux? Never trust anything with a straight tail? Wash your hands before you go to the bathroom?

Actually none of those. Crawfish and other crustaceans like them can teach us a valuable lesson about dealing with stress. Stay with me...

Stress is a killer among people. Stress leads to heart disease, depression, sleeplessness, and a host of other health problems if not dealt with properly. Click on the picture below for a chilling info-graphic on how stress can affect you.

Created by: www.MastersDegreeOnline.org
Created by: www.MastersDegreeOnline.org
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What does that have to do with Mudbugs?

Lobsters, crawfish, crabs, and other hard shelled water critters undergo a process called moulting, in which they cast off their outer shell in order to grow. The only way they know it's time to shed that shell and grow is because they are uncomfortable in their own shell.

The lesson here is that stress is inevitable, but if we keep it bottled up and stay uncomfortable in our shell, we never grow as people. Stress is an indicator that something needs to change, and finding that change that needs to be made is how we can let the stress make us better and not drag us down.

Yes, it may be hard to do, and we may be soft and vulnerable for a while, but we all toughen up. We all learn. We all grow.

So when you have bellied up to the table with a mound of crawdads at Mudbug Madness, just remember that you too can grow out of your shell like those little guys did.

Oh...and wash your hands BEFORE you go to the bathroom. That's a life lesson I can personally pass down.

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