Minor Irritations

[forsyth]

On the cosmic scale of things, most of my problems are fairly small. Lots of people would wish one of their problems was having to put up with the shitty music of Jewel at work. But I was thinking about this while at work, and I realized, y'know, that's no reason for me to have to put up with it. My putting up with her crappy music doesn't affect the fate of starving people in Africa or forced laborers in China or Iraqi civilians who're getting blown up one way or the other. More generally, even if my problems aren't "big", that's no reason not to fix them, because I can fix my own problems easier than I can do much about some of those others. Leaving my own problems alone because "Well, other people have it worse," is stupid. It doesn't help anybody, suffering doesn't make me any of a better person, and doesn't do anything for the people who are worse off. There's no brotherhood of crappiness, and you don't rack up virtue points because your life sucks. So that's another excuse down the drain.

Comments

[peterchayward.livejournal.com]

I think the point is to either

a) Make you feel good in comparison. Pretty standard for humans; "My life sucks...no, wait, that guy's getting eaten by bears. Haha, I'm glad I'm not! I have resumed being joyful again!"
or
b) Make you feel guilty for spending time on your little problem when you could be spending time on their big problem. You know, slightly increasing the quality of life for one instead of substantially increasing the quality of life for many kind of thing.