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A bit of perspective

Masaniello

Masaniello

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
Yesterday I got a bit agitated when the postal service issued contradictory messages as to where my delivery (a $100.00 textbook) was located. Like many autistic people, I can reach boiling point quite rapidly if things don't go my way. The item was soon found by counter staff and peace in the world resumed. Later on, I was in a conversation with my housemate regarding a visitor next week and where she should stay in the house. The visitor has the gene for Motor Neurone Disease (MND) and now experiences symptoms. There is no cure for MND and if you have the gene, the chance of you getting the disease is a hundred percent.

Next week's visitor has a problem that certainly put my trivial issue in perspective. Even if the book was lost, spending another hundred bucks is rather different from having a condition that's like being on death row with the added extra of losing a little bit of functional capacity each day.
 
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I can reach that boiling point pretty fast with the USPS. After all, they make mistakes yet formally claim infallibility in a civil legal sense.
 
When one is up to it, taking a look at our problems relative to others puts our even crisis problems in perspective.

I remember once sitting waiting for my physical therapy for joint pain which, at that time, was keeping me from doing much of anything. While waiting, I could see into the PT room and my attention was drawn to a young boy, maybe 10 years old? His attitude was terrible, but he was doing the exercises. And then I noticed, he had lost a leg somehow.

Oh. Yeah. I still got both of mine.
 
I agree @Judge , there should be pills prescribed for dealing with deliveries. I actually had to tell someone today, it's safer to send thru fed-ex then US postal. Since gift cards are constantly stolen in USP envelopes including checks.
 
When I was living on the streets a lot of people asked me how I managed to be so happy and so positive all the time. My standard catchphrase response was always "Life could always be worse.". That usually got a smile from people but some queried me about it further, when I told them about some of the other situations I've been in they ended up agreeing with me.

There's always someone that's got it worse than you, the trick is to make the best of what you have.
 
Outdated said:
My standard catchphrase response was always "Life could always be worse."
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"Things can always get worse" is one of my guidelines in life. I keep seeing people make terrible decisions because "things can't get any worse", when in almost all cases it turns out that they very much can.
 
Stuttermabolur said:
"Things can always get worse" is one of my guidelines in life. I keep seeing people make terrible decisions because "things can't get any worse", when in almost all cases it turns out that they very much can.
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Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, but it will always wait until the worst possible moment.

For some reason I relate that to a comment from Terry Pratchet - Experience is something you don't get until just after you really needed it.
 
My house companion has a saying I've never heard before.

"One day as I sat sad and gloomy, a voice came to me saying: Cheer up, things could be worse. So, I cheered up and sure enough, things got worse."

@Masaniello: I know how it feels to get news like the MND you mentioned.
I have Multiple System Atrophy, MSA-C type. It's almost the same since all motor and autonomic functions gradually shut down.

Not looking for pity, but I know the feeling of living with that knowledge.
 
All these delivery people have some pretty grueling jobs, honestly. Especially with the advent of online shopping and Amazon. Not to mention the warehouse workers. Let's not forget the Amazon employee who had a heart attack and was left there on the floor.
 
How I see it, if that helps, then all is good, but sometimes comparisons can do the opposite. I see that each situation is unique and it is down to the individual's personality.

I was at boiling point a couple of occasions recently, due to one: I could not renew my password for online banking. Two: my smartphone kept going crazy on me, to the extent, I had no choice but buy another phone and that phone is ok, but has annoying things about it and in fact, third: I take the door off my oven to clean it occasionally, but this time, the thing would not go back on!

Now, if I met someone who has a conditon that there is no hope for; it would not make me see that his situation is worse, because at that moment, my issue cannot be solved.

But, there are times, when I hear of someone's difficulties, I think: wow, that does make my life a bit clearer to see that I have it good.
 
The problem of "life could always be worse" is that "life could always be better." :)

But agree overall. It's not events that matter but how we react to them, if we could only control the reaction...
 
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Outdated said:
When I was living on the streets a lot of people asked me how I managed to be so happy and so positive all the time. My standard catchphrase response was always "Life could always be worse.". That usually got a smile from people but some queried me about it further, when I told them about some of the other situations I've been in they ended up agreeing with me.

There's always someone that's got it worse than you, the trick is to make the best of what you have.
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I often tell people who ask how I'm doing that "I'm better than I deserve to be".
 
Mr. Stevens said:
All these delivery people have some pretty grueling jobs, honestly. Especially with the advent of online shopping and Amazon. Not to mention the warehouse workers. Let's not forget the Amazon employee who had a heart attack and was left there on the floor.
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That's a good point. The other-other perspective is that for every person who has MND, there's a hundred people who have to work past overwhelming joint pain and fatigue just to feed their family - and have to do so for the rest of their lives.

We're all hurt, broken human beings and it is impossible to measure or compare our internal sufferings. Better to have the attitude off always assuming the other person has it worse off than you do.
 
Masaniello said:
Rock bottom has a basement.
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Rock bottom is where things are dead inside, they're unteachable, they're uncorrectable, and the only solution is to move yourself and dig upwards, because you can't fix what's got no soul, and you can't heal what's not alive.
 
The cosmos knows that, and that's why it will part seas to get you to safety if you will believe and walk.
 
Outdated said:
There's always someone that's got it worse than you, the trick is to make the best of what you have.
Click to expand...

How true. I try to live by that premise. To enjoy what I do have, and try not to spend to much over what I don't have and never likely will.
 
Mr. Stevens said:
All these delivery people have some pretty grueling jobs, honestly. Especially with the advent of online shopping and Amazon. Not to mention the warehouse workers. Let's not forget the Amazon employee who had a heart attack and was left there on the floor.
Click to expand...

Toughest job I ever had working in a warehouse for wholesale electrical parts.

Though it did teach me one very primary consideration about employment. A job I don't want.
 
Levitator said:
I will have everything because I do right and I tell the truth.
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However what's "right" and what's "truth" varies with who claims it.

Kind of like using the term "normal".

Terms which are only absolute in the eyes of the beholder.
 
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