If you’ve ever had experience with depression or anxiety, you’ve probably had someone tell you “other people have it worse”. And honestly, it feels like a slap in the face when people say it. There you are, trying to vent about your problems and feelings and they hit you with this adage. What are you supposed to do with that? Well, today, I want to talk about this exact thing. So let’s dig in!
Good intentions?
The first thing for us to examine is the motivation behind this. When someone sees you sad, what is their instinct? Do they want to cheer you up because seeing you upset makes them miss the happy, carefree you? Or is it coming from a place of animosity and annoyance? This isn’t something you can determine with 100% accuracy, either. You can observe and try to decode your findings. You can even flat out ask them, if you think they’d be straightforward with you. But the way I see it, people say this to you for a handful of reasons.
There’s definitely the unkind version, where they’re tired of hearing you complain about things and just want to shut you up. And this phrase often has that stopping ability, because, well, what are you supposed to say to that? It’s a fact, other people have worse problems than you. Of course they do. It doesn’t leave much room for conversation. And to be fair, if that is what the person’s intent is behind telling you this, then more conversation wouldn’t be a worthwhile attempt anyway.
But then there are people who really believe that hearing this will help encourage you and empower you to fight through your adversity. They want you to achieve and to see you thriving again. And it’s odd, because usually when you tell somebody that other people have it worse than them, it doesn’t tend to help. So why do we still have this urge?
Relative gratitude
This “other people have it worse” perspective isn’t something that I’ve ever heard given a name, so I’ll call it relative gratitude. As in, you can look around this world and see how people are going through adversity that you have not been forced into. And for that, you can feel grateful. It’s a possibility, that’s what I’m saying. And not only is it a possibility, it’s something that a surprisingly large portion of the population accesses, at least some of the time.
So when people say this to you, particularly people who find themselves happy and resilient throughout a lot of their life, they’re not criticizing you. They’re trying to offer you one of the tools that they’ve used to get them through the hard times. But the question needs to be asked, why doesn’t telling someone this work?
The slippery nature of gratitude
It’s not just relative gratitude that works this way, but gratitude in general. If you tell someone to be grateful, that hardly ever works, just like telling someone to simply be happy. Gratitude is more of a state that you’re either in or you’re not. You can do things to try to move closer to that state and maintain it more often. But when it comes down to it, you’re either grateful or you’re not. And if you’re not feeling grateful, you need to be in the proper place to receive this message. In order for it to have the intended effect, that is.
Say your therapist tells you to start a gratitude practice. But you’re so focused on why you have nothing to be grateful for. You’re going to find that suggestion trite, pointless, and at best, incredibly challenging. But if you’re in the right spot to hear it, you might go, “oh, gratitude, yeah, I really could brush up on that, couldn’t I?”
Is this useful?
So now that we’ve examined the problem with this common social interaction, we arrive at the real question. Does this perspective have real merit? And well, as usual, the answer is yes and no.
There’s no doubt that maintaining this “other people have it worse” perspective helps quite a bit of people. It gives them comfort and keeps them thinking in problem solving mode. It makes them feel more confident in their ability to overcome whatever it is that life’s given them. If you believe in yourself and think through your situation, you’re going to be a lot better at solving problems. And your mental health is going to be a lot better than someone who is a deer caught in headlights, and only sees their lack of resources and experience.
And that’s why so many people who have been able to stumble upon this perspective keep it with them. Because thinking this way long term helps. That’s also why they want to share it with you. But there are definite flaws to this sort of perspective, nonetheless. And those are worth examining, too.
Others have it worse, so what?
There is a certain amount of invalidation perceived in this phrase. Implying that other people have worse problems so you shouldn’t feel bad is an almost socially-appropriate way of saying, “Stop complaining, shut up. I don’t want to listen to you anymore.” And that’s what can be taken from it, especially if it’s presented in a less-tactful way. Nobody wants to be told their feelings are worthless, even if they know their feelings aren’t helping the situation.
Don’t let someone else tell you that your feelings are invalid or that you shouldn’t feel them. That’s not a road that you want to go down. And if this is a concept you have problems with in your life, I’d suggest you put more work into your emotions. First, start off with letting yourself feel them. So they don’t fester, and you can truly make the most of what they are trying to tell you. (Take a look at this post I wrote about why you need to feel your feelings, or this one about creating a safe place to do so, in order to start working with your feelings.)
And there is a certain amount of invalidation that comes with this perspective, to be fair. That’s the case with many mental mastery tools. It’s up to us to walk that edge of empowerment vs invalidation in the way that we perceive and implement these teachings in our lives. And, I would venture to say, attempt to do so in the way that we share them with others. However, how they take and implement these things in their life isn’t entirely on us, either. Wherever they’re at is where they’re at. Not everyone is in a place to be able to hear about relative gratitude (or the like) and hear the helpful part of it. We can’t expect that.
The problem
However, I would be remiss in not mentioning that there is also a rational, logical argument against this invalidating part of relative gratitude. I’ve heard it raised by many, so I don’t even know who to give the credit for this argument to. But here it goes. “Saying that people have it worse so someone shouldn’t feel sad is like saying that other people have it better, so someone shouldn’t feel happy.” Logically, that follows. We definitely don’t base our happiness on that measurement, nor should we, because then we could never be happy.
You have every right to feel sad or upset when something is happening in your life. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a small thing, or if other people would view it that way. Your experience is personal to you. And you know what? We can’t usually just “logic” ourselves out of feelings, anyway. You need to let them come, face them, and let them pass. The feelings that aren’t faced are the feelings that get stored up and start to putrify. Or put another way, the only feelings that we are truly able to leave behind are the ones that we first attend to. That being said, there are limitations to the helpfulness of feelings, too.
Your feelings
You want to let your feelings be felt, but you don’t want to let them take over your life and keep you from moving forward. (Because in life, moving forward is all you can do.) It’s a pretty fine line to walk, actually. Especially when it comes to big problems of grief and sorrow. But all I can tell you is that there comes a tipping point where you’ve worked through it as much as you can for the time being, and wallowing past that point will be unhelpful. That point is different for every person and situation, but if you stay tuned into yourself, you can feel it.
Once your negativity isn’t so fresh and starts to feel more like stagnation, it’s time to take a deep breath, dust yourself off, and move forward with your life the best you can at the moment. (If you want to know more about this process, take a look at my piece about letting go, where we discuss the why’s, when’s and how’s of the process. You can find that here.)
I think this logical refutation of the practice is more pointed towards people that are trying to push this perspective on others. Not so much people who are simply practicing it themselves. Essentially, don’t try to tell someone how they’re supposed to feel about something, because that doesn’t work and will only make matters worse. But if someone tells you this and it strikes you as helpful, then maybe you want to consider implementing this perspective of relative gratitude in your life.
When it comes to your brain
Because happiness and sorrow are not the same thing, you don’t have to use the same caliber for experiencing them. Not if you don’t want to. I think many of us would rather have happier lives, if possible. Well, this is made easier with a change in perception. To put it briefly, what if you decided that instead of needing a reason to be happy, you need a reason to feel unhappy?
Now, this is a beginner’s version of this perception shift, which in the more advanced stages becomes “even if you have a reason to be unhappy, you don’t have to take it”, but it was that first simple shift for me that made a huge difference. I decided that every day was, at its base, a good day. That didn’t mean there were no bad days or I wasn’t allowed to get upset, but simply that if nothing big happened, just my life, then it was automatically a good day.
And largely, I think this is the same sentiment, big picture, that applies to relative gratitude. You don’t need to have the same barometer for happiness and contentment as you do for overwhelm and despair. Because they’re different things. And if you’re able to access a feeling of gratitude, simply from the realization that other people can and do make it through worse, then more power to you.
So, does it work?
Which brings us back full circle. This idea of relative gratitude, does it work to help you toward a happier, healthier, and more fulfilled life? I’d say yes, but only if you’re able to access it yourself, from a genuine place. Don’t use this teaching to invalidate your (or anyone else’s) feelings, because that’s not useful. But if you are able to access the feeling of true gratitude in your heart, I say take it and run with it, wherever it’s found, as long as it empowers you.
