So often I compare myself to others, in so many ways. I downplay my strengths and successes and magnify those of others. I magnify my weaknesses and mistakes, and downplay those of others. I also invalidate my own struggles in comparison to the gravity of suffering that others experience. There is an entire meme devoted to poking fun at this tendency called “First World Problems.” Like this one:
I often turn to gratitude as an antidote for suffering. Most of the time, that is the most appropriate thing I could do. There is so much to be grateful for and we are so good at forgetting that. But to deny the existence of my pain is to deny the opportunity to feel the immeasurable depths of my gratitude.
I can think of many examples when I was struggling with something, and then compared it to all of those less fortunate. This immediately invalidated the struggle I was experiencing. How could I fret over my weight or appearance, when others in the world are starving? How could I allow myself to get lost in the depths of Post-Partum Depression, when other women have lost their babies? How could I wrestle with addiction, when others don’t have clean water? How could I even entertain the idea that I suffer, when I am so fortunate? Maybe the quality and source of suffering depends on who we are and the body of our experience. Maybe all types of suffering deserve to be taken seriously, no matter how great or small. Maybe suffering is an undeniable, and necessary, part of the human experience.
I think that is what Viktor Frankl meant when he said “Suffering is like a gas, in that it fills its container completely.” Viktor Frankl is a holocaust survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning. It’s absolutely worth a read if you haven’t already. He noticed that survival seemed to transcend the physical body in the concentration camp he was in, and some people who seemed like they should survive didn’t. Others who seemed like they should die didn’t. He wondered why, and puts it down to hope. Those without hope couldn’t survive in those conditions. He also argued that it was pointless to compare your suffering to anyone else’s, because, like a gas, the amount doesn’t matter. Whether we have a little suffering or a lot of suffering, it fills us up completely. It permeates every bit of our being.
Suffering is part of the human condition, and in the absence of great suffering sometimes our brains will manufacture it. That’s okay. That may be a time when swinging back to gratitude is appropriate. However, there are other times when we are truly suffering, and we do ourselves (and our pain) a disservice by focusing the spotlight onto someone else. Our suffering deserves to be seen by us. Just because it isn’t as great as someone else’s doesn’t make it any less real. There are lessons in our suffering. Recipes for growth and evolution live in our suffering. And we all know what it means to suffer. So let’s stop invalidating that, just because someone else has it worse. Let’s practice changing our suffering to hope. We owe it to the human race to seize every opportunity to become better humans, even if those opportunities come from the depths of our pain.