My Problem Is Bigger Than Yours
It has been a season of ups and downs. I'm sure that every thinking person in this entire universe would have their fair share of this rollercoaster journey. The thing with such trials and tribulations in life is that they cannot be compared between any 2 persons because we don't know what the other person has gone through and we certainly won't know how much more they would experience along the way. It's like comparing apple and orange.
I find that there's too much of "me too" responses going around. I know in counselling there's this term called "normalizing" where you try to help the counsellee feel that what they are going through is ok, or what they feel is natural. It helps to a certain extent. It makes the person feel that you can identify with the problem at hand, or that you can understand the situation.
Yet, if not careful, instead of identifying, we may come across as making our troubled friends feel that they "shouldn't be feeling this way", or even that their problem is not as big as ours. So instead of comforting, we belittle their problems and their feelings. While it may be true, it won't help. If you are not one who could resist such comments, stay clear.
Before we become too quick to compare whose problem is bigger, we need to know that different people have different capability of coping with life's issues. Sometimes, I feel that we do not really understand what it means to "be in somebody else's shoes". We can't simply look at a problem separately. There are other factors like past experiences, personalities, character, brought up, learning style, thinking pattern etc. etc...
If we sincerely want to help, perhaps we could provide options from our own experiences, help them to weigh the pros and cons of those options and facilitate them to make informed and responsible decisions to get out of a situation. So, if you find that you don't have the time to see things through, unless you are asked, keep your mouth shut and stop judging. You are not helping at all. You'll end up just being self-righteous, a condition stemmed from pride.
On the other side, some people tend to take constructive criticism as personal attack. Such people would probably not go far in life cos they have this disillusion that they are already "perfect" - probably defined in their Losers' Dictionary. Their insecurity, or rather, their false sense of security, would not allow them to receive feedback from others.
It is easier to stay down but it takes greater effort to pick ourselves up again.
I find that there's too much of "me too" responses going around. I know in counselling there's this term called "normalizing" where you try to help the counsellee feel that what they are going through is ok, or what they feel is natural. It helps to a certain extent. It makes the person feel that you can identify with the problem at hand, or that you can understand the situation.
Yet, if not careful, instead of identifying, we may come across as making our troubled friends feel that they "shouldn't be feeling this way", or even that their problem is not as big as ours. So instead of comforting, we belittle their problems and their feelings. While it may be true, it won't help. If you are not one who could resist such comments, stay clear.
Before we become too quick to compare whose problem is bigger, we need to know that different people have different capability of coping with life's issues. Sometimes, I feel that we do not really understand what it means to "be in somebody else's shoes". We can't simply look at a problem separately. There are other factors like past experiences, personalities, character, brought up, learning style, thinking pattern etc. etc...
If we sincerely want to help, perhaps we could provide options from our own experiences, help them to weigh the pros and cons of those options and facilitate them to make informed and responsible decisions to get out of a situation. So, if you find that you don't have the time to see things through, unless you are asked, keep your mouth shut and stop judging. You are not helping at all. You'll end up just being self-righteous, a condition stemmed from pride.
On the other side, some people tend to take constructive criticism as personal attack. Such people would probably not go far in life cos they have this disillusion that they are already "perfect" - probably defined in their Losers' Dictionary. Their insecurity, or rather, their false sense of security, would not allow them to receive feedback from others.
It is easier to stay down but it takes greater effort to pick ourselves up again.
