Self Pity

Taft

Rookie
Mar 25, 2011
30
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Today I was at the dentist office. And, as one does when at the dentist office, I read some articles in magazines I normally would not read. In a Mens Journal I came across an article on David Duval and his fall from prominence. I was struck by this particular paragraph....

‘Why do you think they’re pulling for you?’ I think it goes back to being a stand-up guy, an honest person who has gone through great struggles and is still working and practicing, not quitting. I’ve had some awful days where it takes a lot of mental will to go play golf. I shot a 62 at Pebble Beach once. Six, seven years later, I shot an 85. What did I do after that? I teed it up the next day.”

David Duval is just some golfer. But the quote reminded me of a passage that seems to have repeatedly come to mind from my childhood...

"I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A bird will fall frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself." -D.H. Lawrence

Why do we pity ourselves? Why do we feel wronged by others, like our government, 'big corporations'. Why does 'the man' keep us down? Why is 'God' so unjust?

We have become a nation of self pitying wimps. It's all somebody else's fault. If only we could catch a break. If only the government would give us MORE help. If only....

Whenever I am reminded of the Lawrence quotation, this line from a movie also springs to mind. It's almost as if the two are bonded together in my memory...

Charles Morse: You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame.
Stephen: What?
Charles Morse: Yeah, see, they die of shame. "What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?" And so they sit there and they... die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their lives.
Robert Green: And what is that, Charles?
Charles Morse: Thinking.

If you feel like this country is in the woods, what are you doing about it? Or are you just sitting there feeling sorry for yourself?

A line from the same movie....

"We're all put to the test... but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer, does it? "
 
I'm one who will admit to sometimes succumbing to the "self-pity" thing in my own life. Most often it's because I'm focused on one thing that is not going well, and that maybe historically hasn't gone well (relationships with women, for example) rather than all the good things in my life. A lot of times we become so rigidly focused on one particular thing that we don't pay any attention to what's going on outside of that specific part of our lives.

Then again, at other times it's just Paranoia.... Because sometimes Everyone REALLY IS out to get you.
 
I think sometimes we pity ourselves because it is easier to complain about something than it is to do something about it/accept it.
 

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