You think you have problems?

Yesterday was a tough day.. My friend's husband is still fighting prostate cancer (thought it had gone to remission), an older friend of mine was diagnosed with bone cancer, one coworker whom I admittedly don't know very well's mother in law and daughter died in unrelated illnesses while her husband is in Iraq and finally one of my co-workers left suddenly as it appears she has throat cancer and can barely speak.

I know I've had my share of problems and heartaches. But I know any of them would trade their problems for mine in a heartbeat.

Which brings me to today's movie quote/song lyric from Disney's finest (imo) modern animated film,

Every day they shout and scold and go about their lives
Heedless of the gift it is to be them
If I was in their skin
I'd treasure every instant out there

We talked at work yesterday about how important it can suddenly be to be simply grateful because you're life can be so much worse. While that's possibly the more moral thing to do - and without a doubt completely reasonable - there are people in this world who are suffering far more than anyone I referred to above. I'd like to meet the person with the worst life on the planet and meet the person with the best life on the planet, but I doubt there's an appointment to such standing. The fact of the matter is, there will always be someone trump your pain and always someone who is doing better than you and has it all, relatively speaking.

I think what is genuine, right and loving is to empathise with those who are sick, hurting or living in some version of hell (anywhere in Africa, middle east, east LA..). But what point do you serve when you decide your problems are worthless because they aren't worse? That's a narcisstic way of supporting someone for one thing. And since most people's problems involve another person (or impacts) them, then a derision of the value of your own problems can increase the weight on the people it impacts.

I can think of two examples in my life where that happened and I think my theory is true. When you don't realize you have a genuine problem, you're a lot like a misfiring gun.

Point being, it's OK to be grateful your life isn't worse. It's not OK to use that to give yourself licence to do absolutely nothing to fix the piddlefart problems you have.