Throughout my life, whenever I’ve felt sad or bad about my circumstances, I have always told myself that there are so many people in the world who have it so much worse than me. For some reason, I always thought this would help me feel better, but, unsurprisingly to me now, it never did. I didn’t realize how bad this train of thought was until recently, when I was talking to a friend who was going through a hard time. They were talking about how they shouldn’t feel bad for themselves or be sad at all because there are so many people who have it so much worse. Immediately after they said this, I told them that they cannot compare their pain to other people’s pain. I told them that just because other people may be suffering, that fact does not make their suffering any less real or painful. The truth of the matter is that every single person will have some hard times; that’s just a part of life. But if we ignore our feelings just because other people may have it worse, we are literally telling ourselves that what we feel is completely unimportant, which ends up making us feel worse.
As I said, I have fallen into this way of thinking quite a bit, so it was so strange to me that my response to them was so much nicer than I have ever treated myself in the same situation. I feel like this is something a lot of people tend to do. What we all need to realize is that we cannot compare our suffering to someone else’s suffering. We all have our struggles that are different from person to person, so it doesn’t even make sense to compare them to each other. What I decided I needed to start doing, and what I challenge other people to start doing as well, is to talk to myself like I would talk to a friend. If we just treat ourselves with the same kindness that we treat our best friends, then I think instead of comparing our suffering, we would just have less of it.