The 'It Could Be Worse' Campaign: A Prickly Paradox
On Monday I wrote about the dangers of comparisons, and I stand by my conclusion that they're ultimately damaging. But today I want to talk briefly about the other side of the "they are worse than me, and therefore..." equation. Think of a time in your life where you were feeling low and somebody said, "it could be worse" to you. Did you immediately feel better? Or did you kind of want to punch them in the face? I'm guessing you felt a little bit like this: Nobody really wants to hear about the plight of others when they're feeling low—it's overwhelming, incites guilt (everything I talked about yesterday) and it doesn't imply that anything is going to get better. That said, the phrase "hey, it could be worse" can work in our favor. It's just that it's a fickle beast and needs to be exercised with great care. (If you're picturing a monster on a treadmill right now, I applaud you). The ONLY way this line of thinking has ever worked for me is in the following context:
I am not alone—and some people who have it worse are thriving, which is proof that I can survive whatever I am experiencing.
It's not really the "hey, it could be worse" verbiage that pulls me out of whatever funk I'm in—it's the "if someone else can survive this total bullshit situation I'm in, so can I." Do you see the distinction there? It inserts COMPASSION and EMPATHY into the equation instead of guilt and comparison. You're still allowing yourself to grimace at the situation you're in—but you recognize there's a way to manage it without spiraling out of control because other people have survived it, too. Let's face it, 'comparison' is a dirty word, so I really don't like using it in this context. I like to call this method of contextual inspiration 'PARALLELING.' Think about two parallel lines. They may never touch, but they always know where they are in relation to each other (it's like they're contractually obligated to stay parallel to each other, you know?) This is a symbiotic flow. There's no judgement, no self-evaluation, just an understanding of place.
ComparisonOption2
Do you notice the difference between the cover photo and this one below?Which one feels more supportive?
When you allow yourself to think of your situation as PARALLEL to someone else's, it inspires action. Hope becomes more immediate, motivation is quicker to access. THIS IS NOT EASY. It requires you to think of people who have it worse as being capable of thriving, which is difficult. When you find yourself in a setback, it's easier to drive yourself into a spiral of worst-case scenarios than it is to start looking for a ladder out of whatever hole you're crawling into. We're programmed that way. We lean negative. But remember Monday, how we noticed that the pit of 'worsitude' is never-ending? Just as our brains can dream up the world's most terrible situations to compare ourselves to, our brains can dream up the world's most hopeful situations to inspire us. It's just harder. The practice here is to learn how to stop yourself mid-spiral and say, "Okay, this is where I am. Maybe it's not great, but this doesn't have to be rock bottom. I'll be okay. Because there's someone out there who has it the same or harder and she's actually doing okay, too."
Perspective keeps us from going to dark places.
Here's a personal example thathappened AS I WAS WRITING THIS VERY ARTICLE, so I hope you enjoy the irony as much as I do. I'm chillin' in a coffee shop writing this little ditty when my girlfriend comes busting through the door clutching two parking tickets as though she'd spent the last 15 minutes trying to resuscitate them from death [read: she was grasping them tightly]. She looks at me and says, "Killian, I TRIED to stop her!" I am thinking to myself, "Oh no, this poor friend of mine just got TWO parking tickets somehow." And then it hit me—as she's explaining that the meter maid kept refusing to stop writing the ticket even though she had money in hand and was paying my meter.. wait.. MY METER—THOSE WERE MY PARKING TICKETS?! I was so confused. I paid the meter. Turns out, I paid $1.25 to somebody ELSE'S meter and in return for my neighborly act the universe gifted me with $80 in fees. Truth be told I don't usually wig out over parking tickets. But this was a silly mistake, and I had literally JUST been thinking about my budget and how tight it needed to be (I've got a wedding coming up, let's get real). So. This hit me like a bag of rocks. I started to feel the heat rising into my chest. My eyes almost started to well. My brain became very cloudy. Through it all, somehow, I'm able to hear my friend's voice, "It could be worse—I know someone who racks up tickets like crazy and now she's totally screwed!"
At this point, my brain is laughing at me: "Eat your words, kid!"
But I decide to use this as an opportunity. So this is what I did next (it took about 3 minutes):
I gave myself permission to PROCESS.
I thought about how shitty it was that I could have avoided all of this if I hadn't made a dumb mistake.
I acknowledged that I couldn't go back and change the past, as desperately as I wanted to.
I forgave myself for being careless.
I let myself hear my friend's words and twisted them to feel more paralleling:
Parking tickets happen to everyone—I'm not alone.
People who eat the cost, even if it feels like a stretch, wind up without crippling debt.
Be like those people who pay their parking tickets and move on.
There are a lot of people out there with budgets that are even tighter than mine—random money-grubbing garbage happens to them, too. And they make it out okay.
Is the situation ideal? No. But I'll be okay.
I took a deep breath and let it go.
Maybe this isn't the most apt example, but I think it's proof that we find ourselves in these situations more often than we'd expect.
What's the takeaway here?
Next time you hear someone say, "it could be worse," think twice before shooting them a death stare. Try twisting their advice to sound more paralleling. Instead of thinking about someone who has it worse and is suffering, think of someone who has had it worse and is thriving. Those people exist, too! And you can learn from them. And lastly, of course: try to avoid using the "it could be worse" scenario on others. See how they react to, "You're not alone. Other people are dealing with this and they are able to push through / thrive / survive. You can, too." My guess is that they'll feel a little bit more receptive when looking at it that way.