Photo via Flickr / CC.
Something is happening to the way we make ourselves out to be in trouble. At least I think something is happening to the way we feign distress, and that's only some, not all, of the Big We. I'm not quite sure how to place it. So pray for me bear with me.
What it comes down to is this: We're living in a Golden Age of self-construed pity parties of the absolute mopiest order.
Not to get all crotchety and millenials-and-the-internets-are-the-worst TIME cover story on you or anything, but it really does seem as if it's never been easier than it is today to feel plain sorry for ourselves, or at the very least to make light of our situations in a way that subtly roasts the fact that this is all first-world bullshit. It's never been easier to bitch and moan for the express purpose of getting attention and then actually get near-immediate attention. The kicker is that so often it's some of the very last people who should be asking to be kept in the minds of others who end up asking the entire bloody internet to do just that.
Maybe you've seen the trend: "#prayfor[proper name]". (If you haven't, go here and you'll see exactly the sort of bullshit I'm talking about.) Maybe you're not an exception, and drop the catch-all from time to time becuase, you know, fuck it. WiFi just went dark at the office #pray4me / Mushroom beef takeout was slightly tough #pray4me / Have to werk this event all wknd #pray4me, and on and on. You're being flip, facetious, whatever. I get it.
Thing is, even if I was a praying man I still wouldn't "pray" for you, your troll ass, and its seemingly endless string of dumb "problems" that are either not life-shattering conundrums whatsoever or are in fact legitimately kind of a big deal, though if that's the case it's likely 100 percent your own damn fault that you're in this shit-pickle in the first place. So no, I will not #pray4u. Here are just a few reasons why.
YOU'VE BASICALLY GOT IT MADE
Like this crew over here. Just look at them, all smiling and having a great old time. Which one will be just hungover enough in the morning to justify working from home, but nevertheless ask you to pray that their stomach settles? via Flickr / CC.
And by "basically got it made" I do not necessarily mean to say you're in the uniquely old-money position to wipe your ass with crisp $100 bills day in, day out, just because you can. I don't even mean to say you've suddenly, unexpectedly fallen into something resembling the lap of leisure, not by a mile.
By "basically got it made" I do mean to say that your life could theoretically be a whole lot better in a handful of ways, but really that you could easily have it much, much, much worse than you do on probably more counts than you could ever think of.
Which is to say you're doing alright, you know? You're hanging in there. You're playing the hand you've been dealt the best you can. You've got a good head on your shoulders. You've never tricked yourself into thinking you can have your cake and eat it too. You are a decent enough human being, and you're getting by.
You're also under the age of 35, so for the most part you've still got your health, too. You've maybe even landed some sort of gig, possibly one with full benefits that's smack in the middle a global nervecenter of arts and culture and politics and media and everything else, that pays you to the tune of a living wage, possibly higher, to basically sit on the internet professionally.
So in the grand scheme of things, man, you're doing just fine. You're OK. For now, at least, you've got it made. You know this (and I can almost guarantee that damn near everyone in your general orbit knows this, too) because come Thursday evenings you've regularly got enough funds to be socially mobile over a pint and a laugh or two with your few, good, socially mobile friends at that semi-new, oaken beer haus just down the way.
Are you really about to go on feigning innner turmoil when this is your life right now? Ugh, *just* missed two-for-one hour #pray4[name]. Are you actually kidding me? Hell, if you happen to tie on a few too many there's good chance you can simply work from bed tomorrow. Which leads right into a second reason for which I'd never, ever #pray (ugh) for you:
IT'S CALLED "WORK" FOR A REASON
You are being paid right now. No, I will not #pray4u. via Flickr / CC.
What's that? You say that pile of work your inbox has grown legs? And it's only Tuesday? But your project partner is out all week! You're a man down! Shit. It's just not fair. The struggle is real.
Here's a tip: Promptly shut the fuck up. You do realize that you are being given money--money, dude--in exchange for "doing" whatever it is you "do for a living", right? You do realize that work can, you know, be hard sometimes, right? Which is precisely why they call it "work". And you know what can tend to be even more work than work itself? Avoiding work.
Look, if you took half of the time and energy required to bitch and moan on a near-daily basis about how tough your job is, to tell us all to please keep you in our thoughts as you navigate these rough waters--if you concentrated half of that time and energy into actually getting your shit done, I maybe wouldn't be writing this thing, now would I?
YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF
If this were puppy obedience school I'd shove your nose right in the dump you just dropped in your food bowl. via Flickr / CC.
Here's the thing. To this point I've mainly been talking about "problems" that really aren't problems in the slightest sense, but that folks of the #pray4[name] persuasion go on broadcasting to their circles as legitimate causes for your concern. That's not too say their problems aren't sometimes legitimate. Sometimes shit gets real. But when that happens for the "pray" angler, what you just might find is that person burrowed at the root of their own (real) problems.
What I'm saying is that it's probably not at all unreasonable to assume that a lot of those who drop some personal variation of the #pray4 tag have no one to blame for their real problems but themselves. Do you really mean to tell me that I should keep you in my thoughts while you pretend to clean up the mess(es) that you made?
Not in a prayer's chance, mope.