The other day, I had a friend come to me feeling sick and unhappy, needing someone to vent to. I let her speak, then immediately had the urge to let her know that I, too, was sick the week before. I was about to tell her just that—“God, I know," I would exclaim, “I was so sick last week, I could barely get out of bed!” But something stopped me: Why on Earth did I feel the need to point out my past illness to my friend, who obviously couldn’t care less at the moment? My being sick the week prior wouldn’t help her feel any better in the present.

This particular urge I had is a problem I see arising daily between friends, coworkers, family, you name it. It is a phenomenon that I like to call the “Competition of Misery”.

It goes like this: You tell someone a problem of yours and they immediately counteract that with a problem of their own—they didn’t listen to you, instead turning around and bringing the attention onto themselves.

Still need it spelled out? Here’s a clear example of the issue:

Person A: Gosh, I’m feeling pretty down right now…I only got five hours of sleep last night because I had to work on this project for class—

Person B: SAME. I actually only got to sleep three hours because my partner bailed on me so I had to do ALL the work by myself, plus I had that whole problem set to do…I’m exhausted!

… Sound familiar?

Person A brought up an issue in their life and Person B barely listened to them, instead butting in with their own (apparently more dramatic) problem.

It’s as if everyone is trying to be worse-off than each other—but why?

Americans have a fascinating obsession with keeping busy. There is a brilliant essay called “The Cult of Busyness” by Barbara Ehrenreich that talks about how being busy has become equated to a symbol of status—for some reason, we believe that the busier we are, the more involved and important we are and we frown upon those who take time out of their days/weeks to simply relax and unwind. This essay has sparked several commentaries on the culture of keeping busy—just google “Cult of Busy” and articles upon articles show up. Simply put, being "busy” has become a symbol of status.

So, we throw ourselves into organizations and classes that occupy all our time, without any room to breathe and relax. It’s miserable and exhausting, yet we feel a strange sort of pride when we look at our to-do lists and realize we don’t even have time to call our parents. Being busy has led to being miserable and here is where the “Competition of Misery” and the “Cult of Busyness” line up.

The misery I’m talking about isn’t the sadness that comes from tragedy. It is the exhausted frustration that comes from being over-booked in life and having mundane issues break the well-planned schedules we’ve arranged for ourselves. Catching a cold, not enough sleep, missing the bus, losing your homework—these are all “miseries” that one can encounter when we try and stay as busy as possible. After all, how can we continue at our normal, fast-paced activities in life if we have the sniffles, or get caught in the rain?

When these miseries happen to us, we have no choice but to use them as a status symbol—just like being busy is used as a source of pride. Everyone is constantly comparing their level of busyness, and, in turn, their level of misery—and in the end, no one is really winning.

The "Competition of Misery" and the "Cult of Busyness" are not ideals to live by, nor should they be used as status symbols. After all, its OK to unwind every once in a while!