Allegedly Deep Thought # 22--Are You Aware Others Have It Worse Than You?

Yes, but I am not going to lie to you by saying that makes me feel any better. I am as conceited as anyone else. When I hear 25,000 drowned in a Bangladeshi typhoon, it does not bother me a fraction as much as when my cat is not feeling well. Not to sound like a heartless jerk, but there is only so much high emotional to go around before it comes across as insincere. We all have our own crosses to bear. Reacting too emotionally about mine is not something I do, much less compare my load with someone else.’s.

My mother spent a great deal of her final years wallowing in self-pity over suffering what she considered more than her fair share of misfortune. She decided at some point that when you reach rock bottom, things do not always go up from there. So she ended it, abruptly and permanently, almost eight years ago.

I am not her by any stretch of the imagination. I am tougher, far less of an idealist, and uninclined to seek whatever solace there allegedly is in alcohol. Being fully aware that we are all at the mercy of time and chance, I neither crow too much over victories, nor mourn too much over losses. My mother used to do both those things obnoxiously. In some ways, watching her behavior robbed me of the habit, for better or worse.

The result is an internal conflict. When bad things happen, I want to curl up in a fetal position for a week, but a little voice inside me says I cannot always get what I want, even if that means eyesight or a healthy colon. It is not like not getting a pony for my birthday, no? On the other hand, I also take to heart Jack Nicholson’s speech in As Good as It Gets in which he said no one is ever upset about how bad they have it bad. They are upset because other people have it good. So what am I really upset about?

Harkening back to one of these questions from earlier this week about friends talking to me the same way I talk to myself, I had a college buddy who gave a cushy student government position to a pretty girl in a short skirt rather than to the more qualified me. When I confronted him about it, he told me we do not always get what we want. To clarify--the guy was talking down to me like a four year old. He did not pat me on the head and send me on my merry way, but he might as well have. I told him to take a good look at my crippled body and explain why he would think I did not have a better grasp on that concept than him. It shut him up for the duration of our college years. It has been thirteen years and I still can hear his words today echo in my mind when something bad happens. We don’t always get what we want. I am confident she never slept with him, so maybe he has a firm grip on the concept these days himself.

There is no easy answer to this questions implication that I am taking blessings for granted or crying over things that do not matter. I am a prisoner inside the only shell of flesh I am ever going to get. This moment in time is only going to come around once. Without any second chances, do you not have the right to be upset, no matter how frivolous your misfortune may seem to someone else? I am honestly not certain where the appropriate line is.

I grew up around kids who’s worst nightmare was not getting the right tuxedo for the prom while another was hoping his father would pass out drunk on the couch and not beat up for making a D on his chemistry test. The only thing I could ever think about it is I am glad I am not as petty as the former or on razor’s edge like the latter. What they thought of my reactions to life’s peaks and valleys is a mystery to me. It looks like we all really do go it alone, whether under ort overburdened.