The Pity Party; Slow-Dancing with Misery

Aaaah, the good old Pity Party; we’ve all thrown at least one in our time. Some people throw them every day of their lives. They are absolute party animals. Of course, quite often they will be the only attendee at these ‘celebrations’, and then at other times they will do their very best to get everyone they know involved. After all, we wouldn’t want anyone to miss out would we? Everybody loves a party.

No balloons but maybe some cake.

Okay, so there ain’t too many balloons or laughs at yer typical Pity Party (although cake is often involved) and the objective seems to be more about commiseration than celebration, but a party is a party right?

Wrong.

Let me tell you that self-pity is no party my friend; it’s a frickin’ destructive nightmare which has taken hold of way too many lives and destroyed way too much potential and hope. It’s a moth chewing it’s way through the fabric of our society and it ruins careers, families, friendships, businesses and ultimately, lives. It is an emotional cancer that will slowly and methodically infect every cell of your being if you let it. That’s right; if you let it! It’s the only optional cancer on the list. And while it’s not a condition which can be detected under the microscope, the individual riddled with self pity is dying a slow and pointless death nonetheless.

Enough about me… What do you think about me?

Self pity feeds on attention but it never has enough. It is a bottomless pit; the over-eater of the emotional world. The more it gets, the more it wants. It will demand more and more of you until you become it’s slave. And it is an insatiable master. It is always looking for a sympathetic audience and it loves talking about itself. It has no awareness of, care for, or understanding of, the needs of others because it is completely self-absorbed and delusional. It has an incredible ability to bring every conversation back to itself. It inhabits the negative zone, is a first cousin to pessimism and can often be seen hanging out with it’s good buddies, frustration, anger and resentment.

It is seductive.

It will make you feel good for a while but then you’ll feel worse than ever. And like any addiction worth it’s salt, you’ll need a little more each time to get the same rush. The highs will be shorter, the lows will be longer and the cost will become greater. You’ll become increasingly desperate and you’ll also become more and more creative in your attempts to acquire the same level of attention. You’ll constantly need to find new audiences because your family and friends won’t buy into your self-absorbed crap for ever. You’ll find new and creative ways to be mad at people, you’ll become resentful of pretty much everyone who doesn’t deliver the required pity, and you’ll tell so many lies that you’ll eventually start to believe your own bullshit.

While it wants plenty of things, with attention clearly at the top of the list, the one thing self-pity doesn’t want is solutions to all those attention-generating problems. Why would it? Solutions ruin everything! That would be like cutting off it’s life force; it’s oxygen. While you and I both know that doing our best to create positive outcomes and solutions is where it’s at, to the individual totally immersed in their self-pity mindset, answers and logic are like kryptonite.

I’m not going to your stupid party

This is why some people don’t connect with the Craig Harper message; I don’t wanna go to their stupid party – I wanna help them create a better reality. I’m not interested in perpetuating, or indulging in, their self-inflicted misery or pouring kerosene on an already raging fire of self pity. While they’re inside the party slow-dancing with misery, I’m out the front leaning on the horn but they don’t wanna get in the car.

The irony is that over the long term, self-pity typically generates the exact opposite of what the individual wants; resentment instead of sympathy and avoidance instead of attention.

In other words, it doesn’t work. It’s a fraud.

But sadly we keep buying into it.

Moving forward

Sometimes a life filled with joy and happiness, or a life filled with overwhelming problems is simply a matter of perspective. Some of us have a gift for making the good, bad, and the easy, hard. Most of the time, the difference between a problem and a lesson is attitude, and depending on how willing we are to take a chance, our best life can be a million miles away, or one inch away. Our best life is right under our nose but we need to choose it, take it and make it. Success doesn’t happen to us; we create it – just like misery. Happiness is not a matter of luck, fate, destiny or the alignment of the planets; it’s about what we choose to do with what we’ve been given. It’s about the attitude we take into every situation and experience – every day. I know I say these words often, but it is what it is. That’s the fact Jack.

The only person who can ‘fix’ your life, is you and the only person who can destroy your life is you. Choose to invest into the lives of others, rather than obsessing about your own situation, and in doing so, you will begin to heal yourself.

So my suggestion to you is, leave that party and never go back.

By the way, I’m still out here leaning on the horn.

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