Two kinds of people get told to remember where they've come from: superheroes and celebrities. Possibly an animated lion as well, haunted by the ghost of his father. I wouldn't classify myself as any of these and I don't know how many you do either. I do know that I've recently started reminding myself of where I've been and where I've gone since. It works wonders.
A lot of people –older folks perhaps, figures of authority– try to convey a similar, misguided concept. "Don't complain, it could be worse," they say. We then reply, "Thank you, friendly neighborhood do-gooder, I had never considered that other, more dire hardships exist besides my own. With this new enlightenment, I will never feel inconvenienced or upset ever again."
Anyone who's experienced the guilt-trip approach knows it is not effective, nor helpful. People often tell this to the disenfranchised. If a marginalized group has made any gains in the past hundred years, the right to demand anything more has been forfeit. Racism? Sexism? Um, slavery ended in 1865...the 19th amendment passed in 1920... Even small things need to be put to a stop. All young people must be healthy and happy nearly constantly, due to their virtue of youth, and to express otherwise is outright disrespectful.
Perhaps on some subconscious level, I've been brainwashed into agreeing. When things look bad, or even just difficult, I will tell myself that worse things have happened. But we all do this to some degree –it's a coping mechanism.
When you live through an unpleasant, maybe traumatic experience, it's one more thing you can add to your resume of life. One more thing you can look back upon and say you made it past. It isn't usually easy to think in that frame of mind, but lots of times you'll be able to pull it off. It doesn't even have to be something big. Maybe you got out of bed and went to class when your anxiety was acting up but class wasn't terrible and you had a nice lunch. And so for another day, you've beaten it.
I started thinking about all this because of a laundry room. I walked in to find old machines, with the paint chipping off the top edges, and some of the knobs ripped off. I had the entitlement, the audacity, to look at this sub-par, but free and convenient, facility and turn up my nose. I know I'm allowed my feelings, but...in the past, I've put all of my clothes in white trash bags before and dumped them out in public Laundromats in the middle of the night, feeding a ten dollar bill into a quarter exchange machine. So I took a step back and reevaluated the situation. And then I couldn't stop.
Every little detail I noticed around me started to feel like a blessing. Even sadness offered the luxury of being "not as sad as that day when I was really sad." You know the kind of day I'm talking about – I wasn't thankful for mucking through either one of those days. But it isn't about appreciating or accepting each hand life deals you, no matter how rough.
Belittling how you feel will not make you feel any better. It's about pushing yourself to a better mindset whenever you can, and having the presence of mind to know that most likely it's going to be okay.
It is worth noting, however: they gave us new laundry machines. It doesn't hurt to look forward to your new laundry machines, too, whatever form they may take.
