[2884] in Depressing_Thoughts
Re: balance
pshuang@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (pshuang@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Fri Apr 3 00:24:30 1992
> or when you know that most of your friends are dealing with shit that's
> a lot more heinous; often a few orders of magnitude greater?
I've had to deal with this one quite often. A lot of times, I think
about what is getting me down, and I conclude by comparison to the
numerous people I know with serious problems that have intruded into
their lives (the kind of stuff which are considered the major social
problems of our times and which should land some of the people
perpetrating this in jail or worse), my life is a breeze by comparison,
my problems inconsequential.
I might note my last multi-page flame note into coattrack included the
fact that I hate feeling sorry for myself, primarily because of the
above paragraph. I guess how I deal with it is accept that absolute
scales are not very useful, and that it's how the problems are relative
to you and what you can deal with that matter.
This reasoning is similar to how everyone gets told that they should
never compare themselves to the top person in their class who makes
perfect scores on quizzes, but ask themselves if they are happy with how
they did. Similarly, to a certain extent, you shouldn't compare what's
getting you down with what's getting other people down; if it's getting
you down, then it's important.
