Thursday, November 16, 2006

Life Bites

The one thing I did not want was a corny blog topicthat let everyone know how hard my life has been or how I had an epiphany one day about how to change my social status. In truth you probably see hundreds of essays like that. Also, I have never had an epiphany about how to change my social status so that blog would have been a lie. Sure, my life has been hard but who has had an easy life? While not many of these people with hard lives have ever lived in an apartment building that housed a group of bank robbers and a guy addicted to angel dust, these people with their hard and cruel lives share one thing. They share the ability to have at least one hardship that out does everyone else’s. For example, if you were to tell someone that you fell and broke your leg last summer and had to cancel your tour of Europe, I could guarantee that this person could muster up this horrible memory and say something like, “My mother broke her neck and died in Europe. Italy to be exact.” This would, of course make you feel like a horrible person. You would think, “Here I am, complaining about my poor leg and my ruined trip while this person is suffering from the worst form of grief.” However, you would never tell this person how sorry you were to hear this. Instead, you think of something horrible that could have happened but didn’t and you would say, “Yes, well, both my parents were in a fatal hang gliding accident in Italy. They crashed into the Vatican and were shot by the Vatican guards.” Soon, you and this person are entered into this sort of race to see which person has had the worst life. Tragedy after tragedy you try to outdo one another. After a while, neither of you will be able to remember what tragedies were real. The point is that everyone rich, poor, black, or white wants to moan and complain about how awful their lives really are. Is life really that awful that we have to tell near strangers that our pets have passed on or that our dear Aunt Bessie has been diagnosed with lung cancer? Do we really need to tell anyone that will listen that our lives suck and when they respond must we try to out tragedy them? Let’s all face it shall we? Life is not that bad. Life could be worse. You could have been hit by a bus.

If, at the end of this, you said to yourself, “I was hit by a bus once,” or anything similar to this, then you obviously did not get the point.

Dealing With Reality- Viola

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