Pardon me while I write what amounts to an advice column on a question no one asked. But maybe that’s the problem. No one asks. And if they ask, they don't actually care. Or, at least, that's how it seems.

I am known by those who are close to me as being an empathetic person, and it's almost as though they see empathy as a rare gift for a person to have. I really don't know if that's true, and I certainly don't think it should be. I believe everyone is capable of exhibiting empathy. The difference is that while everyone is capable of empathy, not everyone puts a lot of effort into actively listening to other people and their stories. It is really hard to put yourself in someone else's shoes when you don't make the effort to hear their story in the first place.

My mother died as a result of her drug addiction one year ago almost to the day of my writing this (I guess I forgot to segue properly into the downer topic. Bear with me. It's going somewhere). It's okay. I am not asking for sympathy at this point. It would be falsely placed, anyhow. But one thing I have not forgotten is that after she died, I went into a weird state of shock where, because we didn't have a good relationship (or any relationship for that matter), I felt almost guilty for being sad. After years of telling horror stories about my upbringing to my friends, I felt as though I was unjustified in expressing any emotion about the situation. So, I held it in.

Of course, I talked to my other family members about it, and my then-boyfriend. I texted just a couple of my closest friends to keep them in the loop. And that was it. For days on end, I bottled it up.

Once I had taken a couple of days to myself (the remainder of the weekend) and went back to classes on the following Monday, I ran into a classmate in a computer lab while finishing up a paper that was due that day. My classmate asked me the age-old small talk question: "How are you?" I'm asked this question probably a hundred times a day, but on this day, it meant more. After keeping so much to myself for fear of being judged by those who knew I didn't get along with my mother, I felt I had found an escape in the form of venting to a person I didn't actually know well. So, I opened up. I said: "It was a rough weekend. My mom passed away."

Without skipping a beat, and without any evident shred of sympathy, he said: "Oh. Well, I barely got any sleep last night." He then proceeded on a tangent about some stupid thing his neighbor did that woke him up in the middle of the night.

I wanted to scream. Did he even hear what I just said? Why did he even ask how I was? Was it just a way to transition into talking about himself?

And this. This is why so many people always just answer with “fine” when asked how they are — even when things are anything but fine. Because they know it’s a pointless question. No one wants to hear any other answer because it's really hard to muster up the effort to actually pay attention.

We live in a time where everyone feels as though they have to one-up each other as it pertains to the severity of their own bad situation. And I have no explanation for why this is. But I do know that it is a ridiculously terrible way to relate to others, and it needs to stop.

But people have become so accustomed to seeing everything as a competition.

We all have the friend we know who is just waiting for us to finish telling our story. They aren’t even truly listening. They just want you to stop talking so they can one-up you. Sometimes, their stories are embellished to the point of being an outright lie. And you just want to say, "What do you mean you got pregnant and had to put the child up for adoption because the father threatened to kill you? You do realize I’ve been your friend literally this whole time and I might have noticed a full-term-pregnancy-sized belly."

Even when it isn't embellishment or lies, what is the purpose of trying to prove you've been through worse? Complain-bragging to make the point that your life is harder than mine? And that proves what, exactly?

Other people are allowed to be sad, and diminishing their story with the selfish goal of gaining more attention is incredibly callous.

Listen. Nothing about your shitty situation makes you somehow more important than anyone else. Your struggles, no matter how horrific they might be, don't make you exempt from at least trying to understand what other people are going through. It's a matter of putting your own crap aside for a second to just listen to what someone else is saying — especially when it's for someone you claim to care about.

When people think that by telling someone their own sad story in such a competitive manner is going to help the other person in their struggle, I am reminded of a "game" my brother used to play with me. If I complained that my finger hurt, he'd pinch me on my arm or leg and say: "Now you're not thinking about your finger hurting, are you?" But he was wrong. My finger still hurt, only now I was mad.

Time for another story:

During a staff meeting for my job a while back, my coworkers and I took part in what was called a "vulnerability workshop" wherein we all revealed things about ourselves to the group. We were tasked with thinking of our deepest, darkest secret that we'd be willing to share, and we each took our turn telling our stories. Some people shared stories of horrible things they had done to other people. Others shared stories of horrible things that were done to them. After I shared mine (I'm sorry, I won't share it here. This is the internet, and strangers, even if they like my writing, don't need to know that much of my personal business), I had a number of coworkers come to me to tell me they felt they "had nothing on me." It was almost as though they were apologizing for even attempting to share what they've been through when they felt what another person had been through was worse. And it seemed silly to me. The entire purpose of the workshop was for everyone to realize that every single person is working through something of their own, not to compare notes to figure out who is superior.

Yes, I have been through some bad times, but so have you; so has everyone! What is it that makes one person's circumstances worse? I mean, yes, I realize there is a difference between, say, a kid who is devastated that his parents got him the white iPhone and not the black one, and a person whose house burned down at the exact moment their insurance lapsed and now they are homeless.

But under most circumstances, the severity of a person's situation is relative to what their life experience is. For some people, a breakup with a girlfriend is literally the worst thing that has happened in their lives. For others, it can be as severe and grotesque as having been abused a child, or being raped and/or nearly murdered. It doesn't matter if you think a breakup is nothing compared to what you've been through. The person who has been broken up with isn't somehow less of a person for not having been stabbed in their life. They have been through something that is difficult for them.

Showing empathy is not a rare or special skill. It is just part of being a person, and having the faculty and wherewithal to turn away from the inherent and internal selfish voice that begs the question, "But, what about me!?"

We all have our stories, and people, by nature, like to tell stories. I am a person who, when listening to other people talk, always makes connections in my head of what the things the other person is saying remind me of. Active listening is hard, but is also necessary for a person to truly understand what another person is saying, and no matter how much one thing they say might remind you of “this one time,” you’ve got to hold back.

There is a time and a place to have your own story heard, and hopefully, when you get to tell it, the person listening to you will be just as focused and attentive as you need to be when listening to others. We all need to be heard to be understood, and we need to be understood to feel comfortable confiding in others.

And just remember, we are all broken enough to be humble.