Sometimes I think there's a perception that people who have it together and enjoy life have had it easy.
We can't compare who has had it easier or harder than us. We're all on our own journey. It's important to have perspective, sure. I think someone always has it worse than me and someone probably has it better, too. I'm not the only person in the world who has an issue I'm struggling with.
Suffering and struggle are part of the human condition. No one gets off scott free and not one of us is a special snowflake unique and alone in our suffering. We are never the only one suffering, and out of the many people on this earth someone else has likely gone through the same thing. Part of growing up is figuring out a way to deal with life in general. People close to us will die or get sick, we will fail people around us, we will fuck something up, we will get in accidents, we will battle ourselves. The world doesn't stop.
I think we like to use you don't understand as an insulator to ensure we are alone in our suffering or as an excuse to prolong it. People understand more than we'd like them to.
I operate by the 90/10 rule, which works best given my personality and how I overcome things and keeps me from being two things I hate: the martyr or the victim. I believe life is 10 percent of what happens to me and 90 percent of how I react to it. The path I take out of the dark place depends on my attitude. Sometimes it takes me longer to find the path out but the fact remains that my attitude is always my choice and no one else's. For a time, I might be able to blame circumstance for things that are wrong, but eventually I will need to see my own part in it: my choice of attitude. I can't lay that on anyone else.
I should note that I'm not in any great struggle or period of suffering...this is just something I think about.
