In your own hard times, does considering people in worse situations or with drastically fewer privileges than you make you feel better?

When confronted with hard times, I usually think about Kurtis Blow

Taking sides - poor people's supermarkets?

uh

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goole, thank u for starting this thread. this is pretty much the only thing that keeps me sane, otherwise i'd be crippled with anxiety

i was kind of trolling tbh

shocking

well, in all seriousness, i'm glad you got some value out of it!

i am curious about the answer, if anyone has cared, but i half wanted to see clusterfucks

it's good, i think, to cultivate a sense of appreciation for the lifestyle you're able to live - not just compared to countries with far more severe living conditions, but compared to humanity over the course of history. for one, it puts quotidian first world drama into perspective, but maybe more importantly, it can create an empathy for people with less that can lead to good deed and love of all man!

Sort of; it can "put things in perspective" but that's about it.

yeah same

makes me feel worse

it's not so much thinking about how awful other people have it as thinking how comparatively good i have it and that i should really buck up and stop wallowing in self-pity. checking my own privilege, to an extent. it usually works

I like to think about my grandparents or ancestors making it through their times of trial. The great depression, civil war, all the way back to when a days work meant getting up very early in the morning to paddle across frigid seas just to slaughter monks. I realize this is slightly different than "well, I'm late on my electric bill, but at least I'm not a child soldier in Liberia" kinda thinking, more "I'm late on my electric bill, but grandpa probably was too, once or twice". I voted yes.

Voted 'sort of'.

Lex OTM. It's not so much "at least I'm not a blind crippled leper dying of AIDS etc..", but rather "Maybe you should stop being such a pussy - people go through much worse shit than this every day of their lives"..

No, the whole “there are children starving in Africa” is capitalist bullshit, trying to impose guilt and self-hatred on anyone who protests against it or objects to it, while at the same time perpetuating the system that keeps children starving in Africa in the first place.

marcello otm

What about "there are children starivng in Peckham"?

What are they staring at?

The starving children in Peckham? They'll do bad things and get sent to Brixton nick in the hope that Gordon Ramsay will shout at them teach them to cook.

a lot of people who hammer on about "FIRSTWORLDPROBLEMS" at every opportunity often seem a hair away from the "well, they don't have much, but they're a lot more spiritual, and that really helps" line of thinking

also whitewhine.com is the worst website

i really don't think this works, at all, as a strategy.

Never had any "hard times" so I guess never do this?

It's one of those things which seems like a really sweet idea in theory, but in practice it tends to turn "feel gratitude for the good things you do have" (which is v v conducive to an individual's positive mental health) into "feel absolute awful crushing guilt about things you cannot control" (which is totally corrosive and detrimental to an individual's mental health.)

Wish I'd responded to "there are starving children in Africa" with "OK, then put the damn fish fingers in a box and post them to them" a lot sooner in my youth.

I do worry all the time; but more out of fear of losing (friends, family,.... in short THIS LIFE.) Not so much financially though. I certainly don't think of those "below" me nor "above" me. lol I don't really think in those terms. Too busy with my life/kids and so on.

a lot of people who hammer on about "FIRSTWORLDPROBLEMS" at every opportunity often seem a hair away from the "well, they don't have much, but they're a lot more spiritual, and that really helps" line of thinking

i don't see what one has to do with the other. it is true tho that serotonin and endorphin levels stabilize no matter what your living conditions are, which helps, but has nothing to do with being spiritual

I agree with WCC's original point; it's the mindset people with the resources to "admire" poverty feeling relieved of any burden to do something about it.

sp: "it's the mindset OF people."

That may very well be a thing but it seems to me like admiring the less fortunate and thinking about how much easier you have it are not just dissimilar but complete opposites.

In fact an honest comparison of ones lifestyle to other people's should lead to action in helping those people. That seems to be a natural response to having so much while others have so little. I don't see why it would lead to thinking about spirituality at all.

Not the same thing, but if I'm having a hard time, I re-read journal entries from my own early-20s-- years of $0.00 bank account + squatting + busking + prep cook + depression. That helps more than thinking about cultures and economic situations I cannot understand or alleviate-- WCC OTM in other words. I cannot even pursuade my friends to vote or catch up on their taxes.

If it's "honest" and "natural" why doesn't it happen? Isn't it more "natural" for humans to be "dishonest"? Otherwise we would all be revelling in the leisure time new technology has afforded us. the reason why we're not is because that belief was based on the assumption that the rich would "naturally" redistribute resources so everyone had a fair share whereas what has happened is that the rich has done its utmost to keep as much wealth as possible to themselves. Hence everyone else suffers; there's no trickle-down effect.

So the only reason one can "admire" poor people is because people who think like that are not poor and never will be poor. This leads to a sense of <i>faux</i>-spirituality because they think "oh they're poor but what SPIRIT they have" rather than any general religious or spiritual leanings. Hence "thinking about how much easier you have it" is a consequence of "admiring the less fortunate" because without premise B on your mind you would never think of premise A. You would do something to help them, rather than just "admire" them.

Hence "thinking about how much easier you have it" is a consequence of "admiring the less fortunate" because without premise B on your mind you would never think of premise A. You would do something to help them, rather than just "admire" them.

lol, this is insane logic

Well, I gave you a decent answer, but now I see I'm dealing with yet another ILx aspie troll, so won't feed you.

You've posited a connection between 'admiring the less fortunate' and 'thinking about how much easier you have it,' but haven't explained the connection at all. Isn't it far more likely that one might not admire the less fortunate, but recognize instead the great distance between your lifestyle and theres. You may even feel some natural shame that you have had it so easy and they have had it so hard. Again, admiration has nothing to do with this. Such a realization may put your own concerns into perspective. It may even refocus your attention so that you work to change systemic conditions and improve their quality of life.

It may lead to any number of things, in fact, but still has nothing to do with admiration. I believe you have conflated this idea of admiring the poor because this entire other idea, and you haven't realized it yet because you think I'm a troll for pointing out this very basic flaw in thinking.

checking my own privilege, to an extent.

on the money, i find at least it helps me to have a little perspective

It could be that you struggle with this admiration idea. I personally have no admiration for the impoverished. I don't think poverty is ennobling and I don't think it is spiritual. I still am able to realize that luck and circumstances beyond my control are all that separate me from them. Realizing that humbles me. It, again, has absolutely nothing to do with admiration, which is why I said your argument was insane. That may not have been a kind way to describe it, but I certainly hope that reading this you'll see the fallacy of thinking for yourself, or better explain yourself that simply evoking an association without actually justifying it in any coherent way.

Aspie. Sheesh.

than* simply evoking

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huh