For the few comments I got on my last few posts, thank you. You guys did seem rather concerned and I am grateful. Maybe I have been over reacting a bit. I’m still going to work and lab, but I definitely feel the tug of suicide pulling me harder and harder. I’m still fighting, but I really don’t want to anymore.
My dad is here helping me move. I’ve treated him very poorly. I just can’t help it. Everything is setting me off. The whole situation. I wish I wasn’t like this, but I am. I feel like I’m getting close to being yelled at. Which is fair.
I think I thing I’ve always heard is, “Don’t be sad others have it worse.” Or something to that effect. But I always thought that was a stupid argument. By that same logic you can say “Don’t be happy others have it better.” I always wondered what would happen if you spent the time going to each and every person on this planet and tallying everything. All 8 billion. All the good and bad things that ever happened to them and ranked each and every one of them. Where would you land? I think it’s possible to say that there is a single person who has it the worse. Some guy in a third world country dying from disease he isn’t aware of and starvation in some gutter. Someone who has absolutely no one. He may be blind or deaf or mute or without the use of his arms and legs. Being gnawed on by maggots and street dogs. I think it would be fair to say he has it the worse. Would this tally matter though? Would this whole process of going and calculating everything mean anything? I don’t know.
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I’m interested, from a science point of view anyhow. That data would be so valuable you have no idea. To economists, if we could get an accurate snapshot. IDK, I’m not a professional economist so maybe they know more of that than I think.
Same goes for other demographics focused careers, I’ve always been a point of service specialist, demographics more of a hobby. I’d like to get paid to look over demographics.
But dropping out of my beaurocratic geekery; Yeah, I think you’re really onto something there. Sure, others have it worse. Others still have it better.
Though I think for those at the very top it has to be the most miserable of all, because no one technically has it better (economically speaking), and that’s all they care about, drives them crazy.
The issue for me has always been I don’t know my exact number, but I know which percentile, which 10% I’m in at any given time. It’s what’s bothering me now actually and I never get to talk about it because it’s math, and no one ever seems interested in the math;
I was born upper 80th. My mother was a low 90 at birth, my dad a high 80. They had their troubles, but they had both reached upper 80 at my birth. The first decade of my life they slipped to mid 80, and that’s where they stayed. Only they kept me in school with the high 80s and low 90s.
So I was given an up close and personal view of the childhood I could never have. Because economics. Reaganomics specifically. Then I graduated, well sidestepped out. I thought being raised by Baby Boomers; work hard, 40 hours, get educated, life will reward you.
What a slap in the face, down I slid to high 60s, out of which I climbed in my first five years into the low 70s. And now after 20 years of work I’m in the mid 70s. At the same age my parents were when they had me.
So I’m an abject failure, and none of it makes any sense to me. I screwed around a little, but this seems like way overboard of consequences for the mistakes I’ve made.
I’m probably rambling, no one seems interested in my stories right now.
I find it generally unconstructive to compare oneself to others. Because things always look rosier on the outside, but you don’t know what’s in other people’s heads. Also, it’s just terrible for one’s esteem to compare to others.
When people say “others have it worse”, I think that’s just a bad way of framing the situation. I think what they really mean is “be grateful for what you have, regardless of how small”. Take the statement and focus on the positive aspect instead of the negative. (and I know how trite it sounds to just be told ‘think positive’. I’m sorry, I just don’t know a better way to put it)
Ultimately, quantifying good and bad also seems unconstructive to me. Some people seem to ‘have it all’ yet they still feel sadness. And you can’t argue with how people feel. You can’t use data to convince someone how they should or shouldn’t feel, and I think it’s kinda insensitive to do that anyway. It would invalidate their feelings. I was deeply saddened by the suicide of Robins Williams. Hugely talented guy, and well loved. Yet, that couldn’t compete with what he felt.
I guess there is a relationship between the good that someone has and how happy they are…. I just don’t think it’s a perfect calculation. So you can definitely work to achieve things that you think might make you happy, just don’t be unrealistic that it’s gonna fix all your problems. For me, it’s just about taking small steps and hoping for improvement. I wish you luck.