No one wins a misery contest

Don't suffer if there's no good reason

Before we moved to a bigger house two years ago, my fifth child slept in my closet. I cleared out half the clothes and put a crib in the corner. There wasn’t any furniture in there because, well, it was a closet. But the net result of that was that when the baby was up in the middle of the night, and I’d go feed him or hold him, I’d be sitting on the floor.

As a 40-something new mom, I was not nearly as sprightly as I had been as a 20-something new mom. Sitting on the floor in the dark in the cold in the middle of the night was unpleasant. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself about all this until, after several months, I had a thought: I could get a chair.

Yes, a chair. I could put a chair in the closet so I could sit on that when I was feeding the baby. I did, and while it was still no fun to be up in the middle of the night, this did improve the situation dramatically!

Getting attached to misery

It’s almost funny in retrospect, but my guess is lots of people have similar blind spots. A miserable situation becomes what we’re used to, so we don’t think of an obvious way to change it. Or — probably more pernicious — we become attached to our narratives of misery. They start to become part of our identity.

You know how this goes — of course I don’t have time for hobbies. That’s what happens when you have kids! Or, I can’t start a business, I have a mortgage. Or I shouldn’t expect to like my job, that’s why they call it work. I have to spend all my time cooking and cleaning so of course I don’t have any time for fun. Sometimes people’s conversations turn into a competition over whose life is more miserable — whose spouse did something more thoughtless, whose kids are more ungrateful, whose boss is more domineering.

But here’s the thing: No one wins in the Misery Olympics. The real prize is in not taking part.

Little changes

If something is making you miserable, instead of wallowing in the misery, figure out what you can do to make it less terrible. Often small steps can make a difference.

If you hate your boss, you don’t have to quit your job (though perhaps you could; I hear there is more than one job in the world that pays a reasonable salary and benefits). Maybe you could volunteer for a project that has you working in a different department and with a different supervisor two days per week.

If your spouse is not pulling his or her share of the load on something, ask for help with something specific. The person might refuse, in which case you can then act on that realization. But there’s a chance that the person who married you isn’t actively trying to ruin your life. It’s hard to see things outside our immediate daily routines. Don’t suffer. Ask for what you want.

Now, there are sometimes reasons we voluntarily take on suffering. I have lived through the miserable nausea of early pregnancy many times. We can all be grateful for people who do dangerous but necessary jobs, or who put themselves in harm’s way for others. I am thankful that emergency responders will go out in the cold in the middle of the night to help people. But if I’m up in the middle of the night? There is no benefit to humanity in me sitting on the ground vs. me having a chair.