It’s all about perspective.

The other day my son, who has a peanut allergy, was thinking about a life without peanuts, and worried that he was missing out. I started to say “well, it could be worse. You could be allergic to dairy, or gluten, or eggs. Imagine that!”

I feel like it’s a pretty common thing to do, comparing two different scenarios to try and make someone “feel better.” But as he started nodding his head, I wondered if there might be a different approach. Maybe we shouldn’t compare our lives to people who “have it worse.” Does the “it’s all about perspective” or “it could be worse” approach help us become more empathetic and understanding, or isolate us more and downplay our own feelings? Does it train us to look for comfort in other peoples’ misfortune? Is it a variant of schadenfreude?

I worry it may be. I certainly think it’s important to empathize with others and try to imagine what it must be like in someone else’s shoes, but perhaps not in response to our own feelings. Maybe we should sit with our feelings, explore them more rather than dilute them in comparison.

Maybe we should figure out how our feelings impact our perspective, instead of how perspective impacts our feelings…

What do you think?