Letters to the Editor
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a few practical thoughts
1. I don't think there's a one size fits all solution to every situation. If someone's in credit card debt, you can give them a sympathetic "Oh, that sucks," and perhaps help them get their finances in order if it's appropriate to your relationship and they're interested in your help. But if someone's dating a married man, that wouldn't really be an appropriate reaction. In that case, you could give them a frank but not unkind "You know that I'm a married woman and I can't pretend I think adultery is okay." There is a difference.
2. A fake tone of voice uttering banal niceties is actually not incorrect. It's not genuine, but there's nothing rude about it. It's like how the cashier at the coffee shop says "Have a nice day."
3. One thing to keep in mind as a judgemental person on a straight and narrow path is that your path has occurred to other people. Even if their life didn't turn out that way, it has occurred to them to graduate, find a job, marry their first love, buy a house, etc. Either they have deliberately decided otherwise, or things didn't work out. You'd most likely rub salt in the wound by making these suggestions. For example, I was once abandoned by the man I love, whom I was certain I was going to marry. I didn't see it coming and was utterly devastated. Shortly after this happened, I met a new co-worker for the first time. We chatted a bit, and it turned out she was a newlywed. She asked me if I was married, and I summoned up all my strength to say no in a neutral tone of voice, without bursting into tears. "Oh," she replied, "You should get married. I highly recommend it." Not helpful.
4. As an exercise, try to think of a way people could have ended up in their unfortunate situations through pure bad luck. No bad decisions, just pure circumstances beyond their control. Maybe they're in credit card debt because of unexpected medical expenses? Maybe the married man never told her he was married? Won't work in every case, and won't necessarily be the real reason for the bad situations, but it's helpful in developing empathy.
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you didn't make yourself
Cary, thanks for picking this letter; it gave me a good loud laugh at myself. I could write a letter like that! I have no problems except that I'm better than everyone and I'm not very good at hiding it...
The cure, I've found, to this way of thinking, is to remember that you didn't make yourself. I'm no more responsible for having whatever amount of good sense I may have than I am for having a straight nose or being tall. Someone or something way back at the beginning of time started the great big bowling ball of everything down the lane. I don't even control my own thoughts! Someone or something made me; I didn't make myself. I didn't make my brain. I didn't feed my mother whatever she ate while she was pregnant with me. I can't guide my neurons.
Recent research found that people who were asked to move their left or right hand at random reported that they were freely choosing which hand to move - even when the choice was made for them by electronic stimulation of their brains. If there is such a thing as freewill, science isn't doing a great job of finding evidence in favor of it.
A world without freewill is a little alarming to contemplate. Maybe you and I were destined to be officious pricks and destined to feel bad about it and you were destined to write a letter to Cary and I was destined to respond to it. Or maybe not. I have opinions but I'm also aware that I have a very limited perspective from which to form an opinion. The one thing that seems certain is that the rest of the universe doesn't order itself to my will... so why should the parts of the universe which make up "me" be any different?
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I'm a judgmental fuck-up.
LW, what's your age group? If you're only in your 20s, your own (or your husband's) fuck-ups patiently await you 'round the bend,sporting a big Cheshire grin. If you're middle-age like me, yeah, you're probably just sick of hearing about your fellow Americans'unbelievable blockheadedness.
The credit cards and married men, in particular, make me want to swat people, not hug them. But I'm middle-age and just don't care anymore about making a big sympathetic show. I've grown kind of cold that way.
Yes, I'm judgmental, too. And back when I was younger, I'd try to hide it, too, and if someone had called me that I'd have been pretty hurt. Through the years I've made massive fuck-ups of my own, very painful ones, and I take my lumps and don't bug anyone else about them.
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Congrats to the Letter Writer
Not all of us have had the opportunities that she has. I didn't have a high school sweetheart. I lived in a house with an alcoholic who treated me like dirt; yet, he bragged about me to his friends. I have never met my biological father, and the man who my mother says is my father will not acknowledge me (strangely I look like him too). I failed at my first stab at college, and I have a job outside my field which is not that great.
It is great that the LW is happy with her life, but she shoudl see herself as LUCKY not superior. I haven't had a easy time getting where I am, and I still feel lucky because I know others have it worse than I did and do. It is easy to feel superior. But, it is hallmark of a flawed person when they cannot show compassion for the tribulaitons of others.
Ultimately, I pity the LW. I hope she can change.
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You sound very young...
Are you? As you age, you might find that the choices that people make are not always as black-and-white as all that, and that even making all the right decisions and treading the straight and narrow path will not protect you from the vicissitudes of fate. Nothing will. Life is frequently unfair, unpredictable, and crazy. We frequently operate with insufficient information, depend on other people (who are not always dependable), are unable to predict the future. The "right" choices do not offer a universal talisman, and the "wrong" choices do not offer universal damnation.
But it's useless to tell you that; you need to experience it on your own skin. I did. In my early 20's, I must have been insufferably smug; I had the smugness knocked out of me over the past few years, and my judgmental tendencies are now significantly mellowed. We are, none of us, all that far away from disaster; one illness, one car wreck, one child with a birth defect, one job loss, and all your "right decisions" are worthless.
So while I do not wish disaster upon you, I predict that after you've experienced a disaster that happened through no fault of your own, despite having made all the right choices and lived the straight-n-narrow path, you will react with a lot more compassion when others tell you of their disasters.