Self-pity is for people who can afford it

I don't know what got into me that night.

While waiting for the Western bus north of Diversey and Elston (which resulted in me taking a good, wet pounding from the freezing rain that was coming down right before 7 pm) Christmas Eve, a strange little epiphany hit me in the head while I was feeling miserable about being wet, cold and typically moody about the holiday season. The thought that occurred to me - and largely in a spontaneous fashion, of all things - was that "self-pity is for people who know that they're dying"; this later got transformed into "self-pity is for people who know they're dead", and that eventually got mellowed out to the form which you're reading in the above subject: line. The ultimate point of that thought is this: that no matter how awful life may be for you now, it could be considerably worse. Far worse.

Consider the following: everybody feels emotional pain when a relationship ends. No one likes being broke or in serious debt (which I was, a few years ago). Putting up with the mindlessness of the Infotainment industry that's effectively turned American pop culture into an open sewer of celebutant stupidity is no picnic for anyone above a certain baseline level of intelligence, either. and there's all sorts of other minor things we bitch about on a regular basis that aren't pleasant to put up with.

The key word, however, is "minor".

Think on that for a moment.

For all of the slights and bullshit you've suffered throughout the year, consider this: you're not dead in a ditch in the Congo, Burma or Somalia. Your wife or sister hasn't been gang-raped by armed soldiers in Gunea. Your son hasn't been dragged away to be a child soldier. You don't have a terminal illness or the constant fear that you could be assaulted - or worse - by people who think you're the wrong color, caste, social class or religion. And above all, you have a chance to improve things that most of the people I just mentioned don't. So feeling miserable about yourself may be human; it may even spur you on to change your own situation for the better. What it isn't is a readymade excuse to wallow in self-pity, since many of the people I just mentioned never had that luxury or had it taken away from them in the most brutal way possible. Some of them no longer have the "luxury" to go on breathing, either, so the fact that you didn't get as big a Christmas bonus as you were expecting seems more than a bit insignificant in comparison.  

The psychological need to focus on self - even in a egotistic fashion - probably comes from some genetic disposition towards self-preservation that remains in us as a result of long-term evolution but which seems rather misplaced when a minor inconvenience gets blown up to the level of the fall of Carthage because we're just that into ourselves that day. Everybody does it, but let's face it - the true test of adulthood may be to admit that it isn't all about you when every selfish impulse of yours insists that it is. 

In this world, there's an awful lot to feel extremely sorry about. Your own hangnail or an argument with your girlfriend over whether or not you should hit Xoco or Twisted Spoke for dinner just isn't one of them.