Rant of the Day: Competitive Suffering

WARNING: I'm about to go on a rant here. I may offend you. I may not. But I will take the risk!

I am SO OVER COMPETITIVE SUFFERING!

Penelope knows all about this!

Competitive Suffering: The competition between friends and aquaintances to determine whose life SUCKS more. The winner is the one who is suffering the most. (If you call that winning....)

Example:

Friend #1:    I am so busy, I haven't even had time to eat dinner today!

Friend #2:    I haven't eaten dinner all week, I am that busy.

Friend #1:    Well I haven't had a single morsel of food this month because I've been so busy.

Friend #2:    I probably won't be able to eat for the rest of this YEAR because I am just SO BUSY.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the "I'm busier than you" war that is going on out there. I really, really, really, really hate when people complain about being busy. As if their life is just SO much busier than everyone else's, and no one could POSSIBLY understand how busy they are, and how tired they are, and how they are completely exhausted. It's like they want an award for being the busiest person in the world. They want to "win" some sort of "competition".

If "winning" means you're the busiest person in the world, and you're so busy that you are exhausted and have zero happiness in your life, I don't want to "WIN" that contest, thankyouverymuch.

**Note: There is a difference between just venting to a friend and competing. I will be empathetic if you are venting to me about how your day sucks for some reason, but when it becomes a competition and you want all kinds of validation from me, that's when I get irritated!**

And now I am going to say something controversial: 

If you are busy, it's because you CHOOSE to be. 

It is your life, your choice. 

OWN IT. 

If you own it, you can change it. 

I will use myself as an example.

Sometimes I vent about having to teach piano lessons after school. I work all day, then I have to drive home and teach for another 2 hours. Wah wah wah! Woe is me!

Guess what? I CHOOSE to teach piano lessons. It is my CHOICE. Sometimes I complain, but I like teaching lessons, even if it means sometimes I am busier than I would like to be. Another truth: If I didn't want to teach lessons, I wouldn't have to. Yes, it is an important source of income, but if I really didn't like it, I could modify my finances so I didn't have to do it.

But I choose to do it. So clearly, I like it. And it's worth being a little more "busy". So I should really just shut up and not complain about it, right!? Right. That's my point. If I chose something, I shouldn't be complaining about it.

You may be looking at your life and be thinking, "Oh, but that is not my situation. I am SO busy and it is out of my control! I HAVE to do this, this, and this, and there is nothing I can do to make my life less busy and more manageable."

No no no no no!

If you're really feeling that overwhelmed, you need to DOWNSIZE. Pick out the important things and devote your time to those things only. Your time is valuable. Don't feel selfish for only being on one committee, or only allowing your child to play one sport, or for not working overtime every time your boss asks you to. Your time, happiness, and sanity are WORTH IT!

Being "too busy" is also a great excuse some people like to use to hold them back from what they really want in life. For example, people wonder how I have time to exercise. They say they could never take an hour out of their day to workout because they are just "too busy". They insinuate I must be lucky because I have the time to exercise every day.

Au contraire.

During the school year, I get up at 5:30am to workout. It's dark out. I'm tired. It's usually cold. But I make it work. I found my hour in the day to get my sweat on! It's not the most ideal time, but it's important to me, so I squeeze it in.

It's all about priorities. And it is my opinion that everyone should take some time for themselves each day. You're the only person who can make that possible. It's not selfish. Don't try to be the busiest person. What's the use?

You're not going to get an award for all that suffering!

Go ahead and leave me your comments on this hot button "Rant of the Day"!