I didn’t always understand this essential fact. I had a tough childhood and adolescence; my mom dying while I was fairly young was just the tip of the iceberg. It was easy to compare myself to others and minimize their problems in my head. “So his parents divorced years ago. That’s not a big deal. Why can’t he just get over it?” I know, I know, I wince to recall it. It’s embarrassing, and my only comfort is that at least I don’t remember usually saying such things out loud. Everyone is deserving of compassion for the hardships in their lives, and problems hit different people in different ways. What may be, for one person, a relatively insignificant event, may be a life-changing catastrophe for someone else.
And honestly, even if it were a competition for who has the worst life, why would you ever want to win such a contest?
Speaking as someone who, for many years, had “worse” problems than many of those around me, I never wanted to shut people down. (Perhaps this is why I had the minimal wisdom to try to keep my mouth shut during my occasional uncharitable moments.) I rarely discussed most of my problems, partly because I dreaded the initial reaction and partly because I didn’t want my experiences to change the way people related to me. I was already isolated enough; I didn’t want further barriers between me and the rest of the world. I wanted whatever normalcy I could get.
It’s a tricky business, because when we know someone is struggling with major problems, we don’t want to burden them with our own concerns, which in comparison seem to middle away into insignificance. But when we aren’t honest about what’s going on with us, when we choose to protect someone instead of share with them, what we’re really doing is pushing them away.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t strive to be tactful and considerate. If a friend is retching in the toilet, that probably isn’t a great time to start bemoaning an inability to find the perfect juice squeezer. Someone who is ill might very well lack the energy to do certain activities with you. And sometimes there are subjects better left alone for a while. Raving about an amazing romantic relationship to someone who is going through a bitter divorce? Well, maybe not so much. But if you talk to that same friend about problems with your aging parents, it might not burden them so much as build the mutual connection between you. It may give your friend a break from dwelling on her own problems. It may make her feel less alone. Or she may tell you it’s not a good time to talk, and that’s okay too.
In my experience, everyone has problems, even those people who look like they have perfect lives. We all have bad days mixed in with the good, we all have setbacks, we all make mistakes, and we all have to live with the hard parts of being human. But ideally the people with whom we move through life can make the hard parts more bearable and the good times sweeter.
What do you think? Do you find yourself comparing problems? If someone has a really big problem, does that make you feel that you can’t speak freely to them?
Another wonderful post. I envy your ability to write so fully and clearly about complex subjects. It makes me feel stupid, even though I’m not. 🙂
Re everyone having problems: in the late 90s I worked at a large studio in Hollywood. Lunch was served in a lovely courtyard. One day a friend visited for lunch, and during it the head of the studio walked by our table, entourage dutifully following. After pointing the bigwig out to my friend, he watched the man for a moment or two and then said, not sarcastically, “I wonder what kind of problems he has?” I’d never even stopped to consider it. that one question opened my eyes considerably.
I read Jay Lake’s blog irregularly, but always enjoy it. I was recently diagnosed with early stage cancer (prognosis is excellent, surgery is next week), and while I haven’t had, or expect to have, a dramatic epiphany, I’m slowly noticing myself becoming more compassionate and less judgemental towards people than I was before.
This might sound weird, but I actually find it interesting to think of what problems people might have. I guess I can always blame it on my inner writer, since stories usually need to have conflict to be interesting.
I’m really sorry to hear your news about your recent diagnosis, although I’m relieved to hear the prognosis is good. I’ll be thinking of you this week.
Thank you, I’ll take all the good thoughts and vibes I can get.
I find it interesting to think of people’s problems also, but until the aforementioned moment, I’d never stopped to think people who are “better off” than me (financially, socially, etc.) had problems, too. It made me see for the first time that everyone suffers, regardless of their status or seeming outward success.
Jeff P.
P.S. Congrats on the story publication!
That’s a very Buddhist thought there, about the suffering. And quite true, in my opinion.
And thank you very much!
Ah problems, the reason I never write about myself. Mine always seem so trivial. I don’t have ‘big’ problems. I have stress, I suffer from anxiety, when I’m off my meds I get suicidal, but there’s no REASON for it. There isn’t a big skeleton in my closet, I was abused as a child, I don’t have a failed marriage or kids I never see. My home wasn’t wiped out by a tsunami or hurricane or tornado.
My life is the stuff of fairy tales, the end of them, the happy part. I have bad days, bad news, but never anything earth shattering. I don’t have any right to be depressed. It adds to the guilt when I am. (There’s a circle no one should experience.)
Are you jealous of me? You probably should be. However, as any writer can tell you, happy is boring! There is no tension in happily ever after. No drama, no suspense. So, I’ll take the terrible feelings my mind creates and set them on my characters, using them to respond to terrible atrocities or mild bumps in the road that I may or may not be at all familiar with. It’s therapeutic. They can have a reason to want to kill themselves, because rationally, I don’t have one.
Whoa. I’m not sure I want to post this. *hovers over post key*
Oh bah… I wasn’t abused as a child. KNEW I shouldn’t have posted. *kicks the typo monster*
Guilt is the most worthless feeling we could have. What’s done is done so don’t feel bad for posting.
I’m glad you did post it!
I will venture to say that it sounds like you’re being pretty hard on yourself. I don’t think you need any big “reasons” for being depressed. I also don’t think you need to earn the right to be depressed. We feel the way we feel. And, being depressed can be quite hard to cope with even without any additional problems.
I love how you harness those feelings and give them to your characters, though. That is an awesome use of your creativity.
[…] Problem Competition: Who is Worse Off? — Amy Sundberg with more on problems. […]
(Here via Jay Lake) Brava. I was trying to explain this to my fifteen year old the other day: she’s going through a rough emotional patch, and one kid she thought was her friend told her to get over it already. When she said it wasn’t that simple, he pointed out that he had Big! Sorrows! and that if she thought her unhappiness was real unhappiness, she was worthless.*
Misery is not a zero-sum game. Nor is sympathy. Just because my child is unhappy does not negate someone else’s unhappiness. I get the sense that this boy (and other people) believe that if one person gets sympathy there won’t be enough for the rest of the class. And I think this is all related in some way to the sort of people to say to small children when they’re hurt or upset, “that’s nothing to cry about!” As if that would make them feel better. If you feel bad, or life has done something unspeakable to you, you’re miserable. If someone says “you’re miserable. I’m sorry,” that doesn’t mean that the next guy isn’t eligible for the same degree of consideration.
*Worthless?I am embarrassed to admit to the amount of maternal bile I was ready to pour over this kid. I restrained myself and turned my attention to the household teen, who really needed it. But really.
Thank you for sharing this anecdote, even though it makes me fume as well. Honestly, calling a person worthless at any point in time seems like a bad idea, but especially for something like having a tough time! I’m glad you were able to talk about it with your daughter and show her another viewpoint.
And you’re exactly right, there are no limits on sympathy and compassion; they’re not nonrenewable resources.
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Yeah. It’s hard, too, when someone thinks that he has the heaviest problem in the world and I don’t understand what he’s going through and somehow blamed me for it. That ended our relationship.
Let’s just say that from then on, I realized that someone would have either heavier or lighter problems than me. Still, whatever problems they have shouldn’t affect how they view themselves and act victims.
And sometimes the problems are just so different, their weights can’t even really be compared. I think all we can try to do is be supportive, even though sometimes we can’t understand since we’re not going through it ourselves.
[…] more reference, here is the post that put me to that other post Problem Competition: Who is Worse Off? The Practical Free Spirit __________________ Addicting laugh will make you laugh […]
Hi there — love your article! Just wanted to interject than when someone makes a judgement like, “you’re worthless” at another person, it’s usually a way to cope with his own feelings of being worthless by spewing them outside himself. Sounds like he had a strategy of coping with his identity level limiting belief that “I’m worthless” by having big, worthy problems, and madeleinerobins’ daughter was occurring for him as *competition* that reactivated his bad feelings. I think that happens a lot with people who compare the “size” of their problems. I’m not condoning that behavior, just hoping it might give you access to some compassion and forgiveness for the kid. We’re all doing the best we can with the resources we have access to.
Oh, we all have stupid things slip out of our mouths from time to time, and I don’t even know the kid in question (plus he’s young, which makes me want even more to provide benefit of the doubt). But that is a great point; often people who act in a less than skillful way are doing so because they’re hurting themselves.
I think sometimes anger can be a useful protective response to such behavior, to avoid falling into the “worthless loop” oneself, but certainly ending up with greater understanding and compassion is ideal.
[…] Problem Competition: Who is Worse Off? […]
[…] we are going to be revisiting a topic I’ve talked about before, problem comparing, because obviously one time was not […]
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