Scale

When everything starts beating down on me, and I have a hard time focusing on anything but my own misery, I find that changing the scale of my outlook can greatly improve my mood or thoughts on the matter. We spend so much time looking at what life is doing to us we don't really pay attention to what it's doing to others, or what it's given us. It's an easy mind-set to be stuck in, since we're all trapped in our own minds with our own perceptions, and sometimes it's difficult to expand that.

So, next time you're feeling down, try to open up your perception a bit. Just increase the scale of your perception, it doesn't even have to be a whole lot. The town or city you live in, for example. Chances are, there are people in that town suffering more than you are. There are people currently homeless with nowhere to go or nobody to help them. There are people suffering loss, people, at this very moment in time, trying to hold back tears or sobbing uncontrollably. There are mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers "celebrating" a birthday for someone long gone.

Or maybe you are one of those people. Maybe you've already had a platter of crap handed to you, and you're just trying to deal with it. Open up your perception even wider. Look at the world, and the suffering there as a whole. There are women in places like Pakistan who are raped and then charged with the crime of being "too tempting." There are men and women fighting and dying for a principal or cause they believe in, needlessly dying for a God who hasn't answered their prayers. There are children being sold into sexual slavery, being abused by the people who "own" them. How insignificant do your problems feel compared to theirs?

Some people may think this is a dark and sadistic way to lessen your own personal suffering. They'll claim that you're using somebody else's misery to lessen your own. And maybe their right, but there's more facets to this than just that. When you can envision somebody else's pain, it makes you want to help. You know pain yourself. You know what it's like to hurt and be hurt, you know how angry and helpless it makes you. And there are billions out there who know that pain, who know more pain and who feel even more helpless than you do. And you don't have to go out and fight human trafficking cartels and rescue child sex workers in order to help. It's not necessarily about fighting the evil that exists in this world, but lessening the amount of pain put into it.

"Be kind to those you meet, for everyone is fighting a tough battle."- Plato
Live by this creed. Next time you meet somebody fretting about something that seems inconsequential to you, don't dismiss their feelings. Help them. Lessen their own pain, because chances are, the problems you face look as inconsequential to somebody else as theirs do to you. It's really not a new revelation. Kindness, no matter how small, can be a catalyst of change. Imagine how different things could have been if someone had stood up a couple times for the Columbine shooters, who claimed they did what they did because they were constantly bullied? For anyone who was bullied and thought they had to lash out?

We all have a responsibility to be the best that humanity can be. Not a lot of people believe that, and even more feel like they don't have to be a hero because somebody else will. Others want to be a victim, because of the attention it will bring. Don't be that. Don't be a bystander when you know there's something wrong happening, when someone is suffering. Be a hero. Maybe you won't be celebrated, maybe you won't be considered courageous by others. But chances are the person you helped will.

Just be someone's hero.