In Which People Try To Cheer Me Up

For no apparent reason, I had a pretty horrible weekend. And Monday. Although my Monday got significantly better. But that's not the point.

I don't talk much when I'm upset (for the most part) and so the people who texted me could figure out pretty quickly what was wrong. But when I told one what was going on (I was frustrated with some stuff happening at school), he launched into a story about how horrible his school was. And that got me to wondering. Why do people do that? Telling me how awful YOUR situation is isn't going to make me feel any better. If anything, it will make me feel worse for confiding in someone who was clearly suffering more. But still. If I'm frustrated with some teachers, or an assignment, hearing about how horrible YOUR teachers are is not going to help at all. Why do I care what your teachers are like? They're not my teachers. My teachers are my teachers, so the state of yours has no relevance in my life.

That might be a little bit of a harsh view. I'm not saying we should never confide in people, or that telling about something that happened in your one life is always a bad thing, but I know for me personally, sometimes I just want someone to say "Yeah, that really sucks." That's all I want. You don't need to fix it, you don't need to give me advice, and you especially don't need to tell me how much worse your life is, especially if it's not that bad.

I think the idea that we shouldn't complain and be thankful for everything we have because there are people in the world who don't have the same is not exactly right. For instance, my current problem is that two of my teachers are making it really difficult for me to learn. There are children in Africa who are starving. I'm not saying those problems are similar in the slightest, and of course I feel bad for those children and I'm thankful for the food I have and I wish there was some way they could all eat every day. But it's all relative. While the problem of not having food is a big problem in many places around the world, my current problem is that I'm having trouble in school.

This isn't coming out right at all, unfortunately, and I think it's making me sound like a spoiled American kid who doesn't know what she's got going for her. But does anybody get the basic idea of what I'm saying?