The Diary
of
Anne Ku

26 April 2001 Thursday

OTHER PEOPLE'S WOES

There are two ways of making myself feel better when I feel bad. I can unload my problems onto others or I can listen to others telling me their problems.

When I discuss my problems with my close friends, it becomes an intellectual exercise. I detach myself from my problem and treat it as a challenge. My friends help put the problem into perspective, so that it is no longer as enormous as I had imagined.

When I listen to other people's problems, my own seem to disappear. Would I trade my problems for theirs? No. I would rather have my problems.

So what are problems anyway? They are things that beckon a solution. But not all owners of problems want a solution. Some don't even recognise it's a problem. Or that it requires solving. Some like to dwell on it.

For years, we may live a problem, never realising that we'd be better off without it. How many of us live our lives in misery, contempt, and other sub-optimal states because we don't recognise the problems or refuse to deal with them?

Yesterday

Tomorrow