Distraction therapy: comparing yourself to others (London)

When I’m stressed out and depressed about my life (“haven’t done this”, “badly managed that”), I apply the reverse spirit of the English saying:  “keeping up with the Joneses”.

I remind myself about people like the Syrians and the Myanmar Rohingyas, just to name two off the top of my head, as they’ve been prominent in the news.  Their physical living conditions (as refugees or in their own country) and the mental anguish they’ve been put through make my own problems pale in comparison.

Racism: I don’t suffer racism — not overt anyway, just the occasional hint of it, which is not bad for 43 years of living here — so I also remind myself about all those poor people who’ve been abused verbally (and that’s just the milder form, from the stories I’ve heard on Radio 4 reports).  I’d be traumatised for life.  

Covid: Since Covid started, I’ve been feeling so terribly sorry for those affected — mainly on the financial side of it — especially those in the hospitality sector.  I’d worked in the gig economy myself for six years, on minimal pay, so my immediate thought when the first lockdown happened March last year (2020) was: “My poor ex-colleagues at the pub!  They were already on minimal pay.  A lot of them are not British, so they don’t even have family in this country to move back to, to save on rent while they’re out of work.”  (Luckily, it turned out that the government had agreed to help out, so they were being furloughed, on 80% of their regular earnings, which is still better than nothing.)  I can at least do some teaching from home via the internet (I say “some”, because not everyone wants to learn online), whereas people who work in the hospitality and retail sectors can’t do anything if their work places are shut down.

So, every day, I think of these groups (only three are mentioned above because the list would be too long for this blog space) and think how lucky I am to be relatively unscathed from all the things they are each suffering.

The reverse “keeping up with the Joneses”* strategy may sound a bit schadenfreude (deriving pleasure from other people’s misfortune), but it’s really a “half full or half empty” perspective, isn’t it?  

Counting one’s blessings does help to put things into perspective a bit.

*keeping up with the Joneses (informal, often disapproving): 

trying to match / be as good as other people, usually in wealth and material lifestyle

(London, pre-Covid and in-Covid times)