Stop Trivialising Your Problems Because Someone Else Has It Worse

Ever since childhood, we are conditioned to find the brighter side of things. To appreciate what we have, by looking at those who have it worse. Pointing a finger at the less privileged is a classic Indian middle-class parenting trope, to silence a child throwing a tantrum it may be for a new pair of shoes or a bar of chocolate.

But over time, we begin to apply this very formula in dealing with every problem that comes our way. Stop whining about your struggles. Don’t fuss about facing misogyny at your workplace, there are many women who are practically chained to their homes. Be grateful for just suffering from stress and anxiety, because there are worse illnesses than that. Such is the extent to which we trivialise our problems, that we end up feeling guilty about how our issues aren’t as big as the ones others face.

If it bothers you, then your problem is significant

We must never compare the extent of our suffering with other people, because the context and situation may differ from person to person.

If a problem is bothering you, then it is significant. You need to accept that you either need to sort it out, or seek help to resolve it. Who is to say how much one must endure, for a problem to be genuinely concerning? We put issues on back burners and let them simmer, till they pass their boiling point and explode. So in a way by trivialising our issues we are only giving them a chance to become bigger and more complex.

SOME TAKEAWAYS

• A lot of us have a tendency of trivialising the problems we face because someone else has it worse.
• Such is the extent to which we trivialise our problems, that we end up feeling guilty about how our issues aren’t as big as the ones others face.
• We put issues on the back burners and let them simmer, till they pass their boiling point and explode right into our faces.

Take personal health, for example. People point fingers at others’ health issues and feel “grateful” that their health scare isn’t that bad. I am a culprit here too. I am guilty of neglecting my health, accusing myself of being too sensitive and pansy. Recently I got diagnosed with PCOS and my last period went on for 15 days. While sitting in the waiting room to get my ultrasound, my brain tricked me into feeling grateful “This isn’t so bad. At least I don’t need to be hospitalised…” Imagine, bleeding for 15 straight days and then feeling thankful about it, because some people have it worse.

We are all accountable for such behaviour. We even feel guilty of seeking solutions to our problems, because they are not big enough.

For seeing a psychologist to deal with anxiety or depression. For feeling dejected on losing out a work opportunity. Or wanting to walk out of an unfulfilled marriage. We run away from these solutions because we cannot justify our inability to cope with the problem anymore. The realisation that we want to end our suffering oddly triggers the feeling of shame in us. We feel we deserve to endure more pain and struggle to validate our trauma. But do we gain anything from this ordeal? No. We only make our problems bigger than they initially were. Eventually, we end up blocking all our exit routes.

We need to stop romanticising problems firstly. Stop labelling them big or small, trivial or grave. Stop calculating what could be worse than your situation and then deciding whether it is significant or not. It is a problem; hence it needs to be resolved. Stop looking at it through the glasses of gratefulness. Just ask yourselves this – If I deal with it, will my life be easier, even if it is by a degree?

Pic by NY Times

Also Read : Women & Happiness: Don’t Ask us to be Happy, Let us BE!

Yamini Pustake Bhalerao is a writer with the SheThePeople team, in the Opinions section.  The views expressed are the author’s own