It’s not what happens to you that determines the course of your life. What happens, happens to all of us. No one escapes. It’s very annoying listening to other people buzzing about their misfortunes. It’s even made worse especially when you are in the wrong setting for such updates. Feeling pity for yourself drains so much energy and focus from within. In fact, who wants to listen to doom and gloom news day in day out?

The previous year (2021) has been quite a challenging year for the majority of us. But sharing our hardships that we have or going through is not a wise decision at all. Every day has it’s own problems. So, you have enough problems to face each day. Let’s not forget that by telling others our problems we end up being weak, annoying vulnerable and toxic. Because pity parties are energy draining and non-productive to the core.

Feeling pity for yourself is a sign of weak emotional intelligence. It means you cannot handle the problems that have happened. It also shows that one lacks responsibility for their actions. Complaining changes nothing. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

If things go wrong, don’t go with them. It’s important to differentiate between sympathy and empathy. Simply put, sympathy is putting yourself in someone’s shoes, whereas, empathy is the ability to understand someone else’s feelings.

We should focus more on empathy than sympathy. When you empathise, you see beyond the situation but if you sympathise such feelings can get to you and make you weak too. It’s a wise thing to accept what brought you where you are, because acceptance is the first step of having responsibility for your
actions. 

Once you have accepted the situation, the next thing to do is change it. Instead of throwing a pity party, search for ways how you can manoeuvre the situation. Once you have gathered adequate information then you can take action. Once the problem has been tackled, learn a big lesson from what would happen if repeated again. There is a saying that goes, “if you find that you have dug yourself into a hole stop digging.”

In conclusion, I hope this very year we are not going to invite people to our pity parties, rather we will seek more assistance on how we can solve the problems that await us in front. Searching for information makes us grow and gives us the responsibility to accept and take action. Just as George Orwell once said, “In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”