In this world, every moment feels like a competition between you and anyone in your range. You've got to have the best social media profile, the best summer internship, the best coffee order. There isn't a lot left for people to just leave be, and pain is no exception to this overarching concept of "Everyday Olympics" as I call it.

Now, I'm not bashing a competitive attitude, as that is a great edge to have, but when it starts flowing into every aspect of our lives, therein lies the problem.

I've started to notice a trend of people "competing" with each other to set the bar the highest on who has it worse when it comes to physical and mental anguish.

I have one thing to say about this:

What do you hope to achieve?

By trying to top others in the category of pain, you're probably hoping for one of two outcomes. Either you're trying to make them feel better about their pain by telling them about how yours is worse, or you're trying to actually make them feel worse by reminding them how you have THE worst situation, and they are insignificant in comparison.

There is something that should be remembered through this though, which is that neither of these things are productive. Even if you have good intentions, talking about how you have it worse will not make someone feel better about their pain, it will just guilt them into not expressing it, even if that's not what you set out to do (who hasn't felt like this at some point?).

If your intention is actually to make someone feel guilty about what they're feeling, that's just malicious and only benefits you.

Am I saying that I have not done this in my life? Of course not. I'm not 100 percent great at life, but that's okay, because no one is. Recognizing things you can do better and making an effort to fix them, however, is worth trying to do.

There have been many instances in my life where I have been a part of this co-rumination with my friends. While co-rumination is proven to strengthen bonds between friends, it almost always makes the individual feel worse than before. This is important to remember because it's so important to be conscious of where your conversations are headed.

Of course, it's normal and natural to vent to your friends about things going on in your life, but if it begins consuming every single conversation or interaction you have, you may want to re-evaluate what's going on.

After all of this, you may get the idea that I'm going to look down on ever complaining about anything, but the truth is that I'm probably going to complain just as much as I always have. I'm not going to look down on my friends that complain to me, because like I said earlier, co-rumination helps build strong bonds to a certain extent. What I am going to try to do is not compare my pain or struggles to other people's.

Everyone has struggles in their life; this is not news to you, dear reader. You're probably thinking about all the things that are less than satisfactory in your life right now. All of those things are valid to be upset about; you can’t change your feelings about something.

That’s not the point of what I’m saying. I’m offering the idea of being more compassionate about the concerns of your friends and being more understanding of their pain rather than canceling it out or belittling it with your own pain. It’s not the most eloquent thing I’ve ever said, but the world is a really sucky place sometimes. Again, this is certainly not news to you.

What we can do for each other is be there in a genuine and helpful way, making the lives of those around us a little better.