Have you noticed this? When a major tragedy strikes anywhere in the world, we are required to not complain about things deemed “petty” by others unaffected by the tragedy.
There was a major disaster in Japan. Uncounted people are dead. Uncounted people have lost their homes. And the rest of the world is no longer “allowed” to complain about problems of a lesser scope.
When a tsunami struck Haiti, I was cornered by someone who told me that we are blessed, and should thank God every day that we are so blessed to not live in an area likely to be hit by a tsunami. A week later, he was fighting daily with his girlfriend about stupid and petty things.
Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but I work really hard to not take much of anything for granted. I know that I live in a remarkably safe area of the world, but that is largely a choice. I choose to not live closer to the coast. I choose to not live in areas where destructive weather patterns are common. I choose to live far enough away from New York City that any major disaster there will likely only affect me in terms of refugees needing a place to go to. That said, I’m completely fucked if someone decides to start dropping nukes on the states. One in Boston, one in NYC and maybe even one in Montreal and my city is gone.
I wake up every morning thankful to have a job. It doesn’t mean I don’t wish for one that made me less unhappy or paid me better, but I know, every day, that I am better off than those who are un- or under-employed and I don’t take that for granted. I wake up every morning grateful that my friends and family aren’t sick, or, when they are, that we live in an area with excellent hospitals.
I think about all of these things. I also think about “what if”. Probably a lot more than I should. I watch speculative disaster television and read speculative (science) fiction. I have mental plans for what to do in the event of apocalypse, and I have prepared for many different ways that could come down. I’ve even gone so far as to discuss aspects of it with my family. I don’t have any physical supplies, but considering the way I live, I’m not sure I could transport much of anything, so they would probably go to waste.
My point, before I lose it, is that I don’t take much for granted. I live with an overwhelming sense that I have no idea what tomorrow will bring – plans or no. The natural disasters of the past decade have taught me that. New York State might be on a minor fault line, but it’s still a fault line and there’s certainly the possibility that it will open up one day and eat us all. Or maybe Yellowstone will finally blow and the wind will push all the ash in our direction, blotting out the sun.
Is that the message that people are trying to convey? That you can’t take anything for granted and you need to live in the moment? Or is it really a message of “things are so much worse for other people, your problems do not matter”.
Well, you know what? In the grand scheme of things, none of it matters. Everyone dies and, in the sense of geologic time, a human lifespan is shorter than the blink of a proverbial eye. It may not matter to you that things make my life unhappy, but it affects how productive I can be. On a bad day, it affects whether or not I get out of bed (on time). Our “petty” problems aren’t petty to us, and while we watch the news footage and YouTube videos of the destruction in Japan, we’re mostly being voyeurs, not concerned citizens somehow trying to find a higher power in all of it.
Call me callous, but things that happen elsewhere don’t stop smaller problems that affect us directly. Thankfully, I haven’t lost anyone I love to a natural disaster, but even if I did, it wouldn’t change your life or lessen the problems that you’re dealing with. It might overshadow the problems in my own life, but even something that personal doesn’t make the rest of the suck go away.
Regular readers of my blog know that I went through some pretty heavy shit the past few years, and most of it was completely consuming. I lost friends who told me, in no uncertain terms, that they were not interested in listening to me complain about anything. I have at least one friendship that was irreparably changed and lessened by that sort of statement. I had people tell me that I should suck it up and move on. I also had people tell me that my problems were a drop in the bucket compared to [something else]. All that ever does is tell people that they don’t matter. And with major disasters in other countries, it says “You matter less to me than strangers.”
This is a terrible message that we send and it needs to stop. Your problems matter to you, whoever you are. You might live a comparatively charmed life, but it doesn’t mean your problems cease to matter or somehow wind up mattering less.
One caveat to this, though. When you have people in your life who are suffering more than you, be considerate. My friend (who knows who she is) was unemployed for a while and, at one point said to (not about) me, “You know, it’s really hard to listen to people complain about how much their job sucks when I don’t even have one.” I immediately apologized if I had done that (she said I hadn’t, but…) and made an effort to not complain to her on that subject. That, I think is reasonable, but even then, she didn’t say that job suck problems don’t matter, just that she cant’ listen to them. That’s a mindset I can get behind.