a story, to put things in perspective.

as some of you know, i've just started a new job as casual social worker in acute care for a large urban health authority.  today i was an orientation day on one of the units i'll be working on, covering vacation for the regular social worker.  we met with a woman and her daughter whose son and brother is a patient.  one week ago today, the day after his nineteenth birthday, this boy was a passenger in a vehicle that rolled off an embankment, and he's now a quadriplegic.  19, an athlete, the youngest of four, by all accounts a great kid, and he'll never walk again.  if he's lucky, he'll be able to drive his electric chair with his hand instead of his mouth.

so if anyone is thinking of complaining about their cellulite or their fat arms or their difficult 5 miler, please reconsider.  most of us are bloody lucky.

What a tragedy that is.  May his family be given what they need to take care of him.

PG, I'd happily share with you the thousands of stories I've collected in the past year similar to yours, but you're going to get a hell of a lot of your own within the next few months.

Some of the petty posts on here make me sick at times.  It makes me even more sick when I post 'em.

oh, i know.  and i had plenty of stories before this.  i just had a hard time with this one today, because having been in youth work for so long (and having known more than a few kids who`ve been killed in crashes like this), this boy could have been any one of hundreds that i know and love.

I don't see a whole lot of pediatric traumas come through, thankfully, but the ones that do are usually really disturbing.  The most recent was a toddler, fishing with family and friends had gone missing.  They found him about an hour later floating down the river.  His eyes were open and glazed over the entire time, pointing in my direction.

There was another toddler a bit before that who was playing in the areas of the trailer park she lived in.  For whatever reason, the speed limit is over 50 in that area.  She didn't stand a chance.  The parents donated her organs and saved three lives, though.

There's a pretty gruesome one involving a hot bath, too but I can't go into detail about that one.  That kid lived.

Wow all of these stories are extremely sad. :(

I can't even string together a sentence to explain how icky I feel after reading the 2 toddler stories. >.<

...

These posts make me happy to be alive.

pgeorgian, is that your dog? Adorkable.

Yes it's sad but things only get put into perspective when they happen to the individual because up until that point the vast majority don't believe that anything like that will ever happen to them....so in the meantime people go on with their problems believing them to be as real and significant as anyone else because to them they are, regardless of how petty they may seem.

I hate when people say they didn't think it could happen to them. Why, are you God or somethin'? What makes you so immune from reality? Because you've been a good person all your life so this one incident couldn't possibly happen to you?

It reminds me of Bristol Palin. "If girls knew the consequences of sex, they wouldn't be having it. I never thought this would happen to me." What kind of sex education were you getting kiddo, and who taught you that life doesn't apply to you?

None of them should complain about their sittuations...because what about the stories about those that don't live?? Or the countless that sit there and starve / freeze to death?

There is always someone out there with a sittuation worse than ours to make things seem "not as bad".... does it trivialize our own problems? Hmm, hard to say.... I think the best answer would be we all have our ups and downs in life :)

Yeah, those stories are horrible and ive heard countless others, but I honestly cannot live my life or see my issues as any less important because someone was dealt a raw deal in life. I have sympathy for them but if my biggest problem in my life constantly "complaining about cellulite" then so be it. I cannot and will not live my life knowing someone has it worse then me so I should feel better. Becauase someone out there has it way better then me and i know they couldn't give a crap.

Original Post by fooledbyfaith:

I cannot and will not live my life knowing someone has it worse then me so I should feel better. Becauase someone out there has it way better then me and i know they couldn't give a crap.

yeah, that's logical.  you're much better off to feel worse about yourself because some hypothetical other who has it better doesn't care.  good thinking.

Original Post by fooledbyfaith:

Yeah, those stories are horrible and ive heard countless others, but I honestly cannot live my life or see my issues as any less important because someone was dealt a raw deal in life. I have sympathy for them but if my biggest problem in my life constantly "complaining about cellulite" then so be it. I cannot and will not live my life knowing someone has it worse then me so I should feel better. Becauase someone out there has it way better then me and i know they couldn't give a crap.

But but you have it better than lots and said you have sympathy for them then why wouldn't someone better than you not have it also? :)

Somewhere in Texas, right now, there's a girl with no arms putting her contact lens' in with her toes.

Somewhere in Iraq, there's a kid doing his best not to get his head blown off, and still has the capacity to be kind to the kids in the village he's patrolling.

Iranian students, although fully aware that Mousavid is almost as conservative as Ahmadenajahd and that the candidates are all picked by the Council of Experts, are still willing to stand up and proclaim their right to have their vote mean something.

Yeah. In the whole vast configuration of the universe, whether or not my new jeans fit isn't at the top of the list of real problems.

And that 19 year old kid is lucky he didn't wind up with TBI.

All in all, I have no complaints about my life.

Original Post by fooledbyfaith:

Yeah, those stories are horrible and ive heard countless others, but I honestly cannot live my life or see my issues as any less important because someone was dealt a raw deal in life. I have sympathy for them but if my biggest problem in my life constantly "complaining about cellulite" then so be it. I cannot and will not live my life knowing someone has it worse then me so I should feel better. Becauase someone out there has it way better then me and i know they couldn't give a crap.

If you are focused on your cellulite, then you need the wake up call that this is in fact a very minor problem, not just in the grand scheme of things, but in your own life as well.

What isn't helpful is if you're going through a hard time and someone tells you to think of all the starving kids in Africa or the kid who got paralized last week. This won't help you work through your issues at all and generally only creates resentment towards the person who has just trivialized your problems. I also agree that you can't effectively live your life constantly thinking about the things that could happen.

I know I've gotten stuck in a rut more than once and needed someone to point out that the problem I was so focused on and complaining about was really rather minor.

Yep yep. I see a fair amount of that stuff at work too...(school is basically work at this point). Good post pg - a little perspective is always a good thing. Too much perspective can be paralyzing, just like too much humility - but a little perspective and a little humility are wonderful things and should be reflected upon daily.