May 26, 2022·edited May 26, 2022Liked by Casey Juanxi Li
Enjoyed reading this, was reminded of Brene Brown’s work on comparative suffering. It’s dangerous and unhelpful to compare your suffering to others and vice versa.
Thanks for shining a light on these issues and bringing them to the fore. It's a great read and flows nicely too 🙂.
It sparked some introspection about why I "hedge" my expressions of suffering and I came up with these nuances:
- as a means to make myself feel better by talking up my situation. "It's not as bad compared to X." somehow helps me focus on better parts of my day
- to control how I'm perceived more generally beyond that one conversation. I don't enjoy the company of people who *only* complain (regardless about what), and I worry about becoming one such person myself at times when I'm going through some sort of struggle.
Enjoyed reading this, was reminded of Brene Brown’s work on comparative suffering. It’s dangerous and unhelpful to compare your suffering to others and vice versa.
Thanks for shining a light on these issues and bringing them to the fore. It's a great read and flows nicely too 🙂.
It sparked some introspection about why I "hedge" my expressions of suffering and I came up with these nuances:
- as a means to make myself feel better by talking up my situation. "It's not as bad compared to X." somehow helps me focus on better parts of my day
- to control how I'm perceived more generally beyond that one conversation. I don't enjoy the company of people who *only* complain (regardless about what), and I worry about becoming one such person myself at times when I'm going through some sort of struggle.
I feel like forced positivity works, but only up to the point where it becomes toxic ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-14/what-is-fono-toxic-positivity-is-doing-more-harm-than-good#:~:text='%20That's%20toxic%20positivity.%E2%80%9D&text=Call%20it%20FONO%2C%20or%20fear,anything%20but%20a%20rictus%20grin. ).
It's a balancing act...