You can’t be happy because someone else is happier.

I was on the phone the other day with a friend. We were catching up on life and our mutual friends’ lives. She had brought up to me about a friend ‘complaining’ about something that friend’s significant other did. I don’t remember what it was, but I know she dismissed it because it seemed insignificant to her. I had said to her, “Something that seems SO small and simple to you and I because it isn’t the same hard we’ve experienced doesn’t mean it isn’t hard for her”. We are both frontline workers, we see people die almost everyday we work. We see families saying goodbye to their loved ones or the momom who died by herself because of COVID. This is our hard. But that’s not everyone else’s hard.

We are surrounded by people who SHUTTER at the idea of what we do for a living. AND THAT’S OKAY. What’s not okay, is dismissing their hard. It’s hard for us to grasp this, but instead of dismissing their hard, we are learning to be grateful that they haven’t had to experience what we have had to.

We are all from different walks of earth. We’ve traveled different paths. Our experiences are different. When we say to someone or to ourselves “You can be upset about that because someone has it harder” is like saying “you can’t be happy because someone else is happier”. See how the flip gets switched there? Dismissing others is NOT OKAY. We cannot live this life comparing ourselves.

Everyone’s hard is different. What is hard to you might not be hard the them. What is hard to them may not be hard to you. Either way, your feelings are justified. You’re allowed to feel what you feel. So cut that shit out.