I don’t understand people who say this with a superior look on their faces. So you have struggled in life. Big deal! Who hasn’t?
Life is all about struggle – we struggle to do our best in school/college and then in our jobs, we struggle to keep relationships going, we struggle to make ends meet. And in our heart of hearts all of us feel proud of our struggles once we accomplish something out of them. I feel if we get something without any struggle, though we feel happy about it, in our subconscious we feel a little guilt about getting it too easily. Don’t we?
Its human nature to compare, so we also compare our struggles with other’s. I have seen working women look down on homemakers as they feel that their struggle is bigger since they have to manage both home and career. But the homemaker who wakes up at 4 am every morning to wash the family’s clothes because that’s the only time she gets running water is also struggling in her own way. The guy on the bike may feel he is struggling more than the guy in the fancy car, but who knows what all the car guy has gone through to be able to afford it. I read somewhere - everyday the deer has to run faster than the fastest tiger to survive, everyday the tiger has to run faster than the fastest deer to survive.
So the point is why feel so superior about your own struggles and compare them with others? At the end of the day this only leads us to feel that we did not get our due. And then bitterness and frustration sets in. Its all around us – with relatives, friends, colleagues. Won’t life be beautiful if we just stop comparing?
