Honesty in a person is about as rare as someone without self-pity. At least that’s a mangled form of the quote from Stephen Vincent Benet. I know I should find the actual quote, but frankly I feel less than 100% today. But don’t feel badly for me.
This past weekend, two separate occurrences left me pondering the concept of self-absorbed unhappiness. I hate pity, largely because I loathe it in myself the most. Yet this psychological response to adversity is something that few of us can escape.
Saturday morning I was to host a group of sleepy 14 college students who had been stranded in New Orleans with no flights back to Philadelphia. Opting to drive the 1,300 miles home to Buffalo instead, the group (headed by my friend Andrew) were looking for a place to crash for a few hours of deserved sleep. They chose to drive straight through, but did stop in Louisville for breakfast. This unfortunate series of events isn’t the point here.
“How are we supposed to overcome this automatic response that is seemingly inherent, programmed into our heads? We want to be coddled like children, we want others to empathize with our misfortune.”
As I met the groggy group of co-eds at the Lagrange Cracker Barrel, I was taken aback. Almost all of them seemed totally consumed with their own plight of being cramped and cranky from the past 13 hours in the van. Andrew and a few others were surprisingly cheery, providing sharp contrast to the others who sat sullen and lifeless at the surrounding tables. In fact, I was repeatedly struck by Andrew’s demeanor. Here was someone who himself is a student was leading them all, yet looking past the bad hand that they had been dealt. He seemed to have it in perspective, framed in the larger context that they were, after all, returning from a week’s work of service in New Orleans and thus had not a thing to complain about. He seemed at peace with the task at hand, especially considering he had to do the majority of the driving. Yet his fellow students still wanted to be left alone to wallow in grits, gravy and self-pity.
It’s hard to discuss this without appearing judgmental. True, these students may have just been exhausted, and who am I to play magistrate of moods? God help me if I were to stand trial for my own frame of mind in such a situation.
The rest of the weekend was filled with little else beyond housework. The Wife was couch-ridden due to an illness that, to be fair, was considerably more than your typical cold. But again, for as much congestion as she had, there was equally as much self-pity. She never gets sick, and likely hasn’t been this ill in years. And as human nature would allow, she felt badly that she felt badly. No blame is rendered to her, for she was a good sport in not demanding my care or even my own consolation. But again, what a curious position self-pity puts us in. Instead of realizing that illness is as inevitable as the coming work week, she was tangled up in her own misfortune. Perspective is lost as wrap ourselves in the warm blanket of pity.
How are we supposed to overcome this automatic response that is seemingly inherent, programmed into our heads? We want to be coddled like children, we want others to empathize with our misfortune. I’ve been struggling for years with this and yet have no plan of attack myself. The most I’ve been able to achieve is simply realizing my own pity, pointing out to myself when I am cognizant of wallowing in my own shallow puddle of sorrow. I think that I’m much better at spotting the warning signs and trying to cut them off, but yet I couldn’t be further from perfection still. The ability of some to deactivate this coping mechanism, to not yearn for the compassion of others, leaves me truly, truly baffled.
So as tired legs climbed into vans and sickly bodies waited for relief, time moved forward as always. At the end of both journeys their minds will likely erase the events of the weekend, forgetting that too many hours were spent as prisoners of their own sorrow. I don’t want to live my life like this. I just don’t know how to opt out.
