I would like to think that no one has personally heard or uttered these words, but we have all felt the twinge of this phrase within ourselves. People complain. Maybe I should reword that; people complain a lot. Whether it is about a life-changing event or about the dude who cut you off on your way to Wendy’s, we are all exposed to a vast array of negativity regardless of age, social status, or gender. But does our complaining sometimes turn into the game of “Oh you think your life is hard?” a little too often? I certainly think so.

Almost everyone is both a victim and a culprit of these types of behaviors, so no one should really feel bad about acting this way or get too angry at someone who does it because it just seems to be a part of being human. We have all had at least one terrible thing happen to us, and naturally we may want to share our feelings about it to our friends, family, or anyone who will listen.

The “problem” that people run into in this situation is that, even if you know the person well, you honestly have no idea what has happened to them during their day, let alone their life that could be compared to your terrible event. What is considered terrible to one person may not even cause a speck of worry to another. The term “first world problems” can be applied to this explanation as well. This term means that all of the every-day things we complain about are only considered problems in first world countries, where people living in third world countries deal with real things to complain about such as dictatorships, crippling poverty, famine, and much more, to us, unfathomable events.

Another thing that should be pointed out is that there is a difference between collectively having a whine-fest and blatantly trying to crush the other persons' tale of woe with your own, no matter what the topic. Someone always has it worse than you no matter who or where in the world they are. There is a fine line between what is and is not considered "worthy" to complain about in some people's eyes and there is nothing wrong with that.

All in all, it is a normal thing to want to rant to someone about something, but maybe we should all start thinking about who we are complaining to, and if what we are complaining about is really worth getting so worked up over. Who really wants to get into a fist fight over whose life is worse? Personally, I feel as though people might have more fun one-upping each other on how fortunate their lives are. This could lead to a bragging fest, but hey, looking on the bright side and realizing your privileges is no one else's business.