Misery

Misery (AKA: relieve yourself on your friends): “Misery loves company”! True statement. When a person is in a place of misery, they often want as many people to validate their frustration and depression as possible. If we can get people to hear us, sympathize with us, and maybe even commiserate with us, it somehow makes our misery more bearable! While we exist entirely independently of others, we want them to chime in on our existence. We desire others to experience life with us so that it somehow seems less unbearable. 

There are support groups for everything, every problem, every addiction, every sickness, these groups exist as means of gaining strength. Part of what makes them popular is the opportunity people are granted to dump their emotional baggage, but the true effectiveness of a support group is the strengthening that results.  At work, myself and the other salesmen get together and talk through deals gone south, or the market, or the customer base. We lay our frustrations on the table, and can commiserate with one another’s problems. It’s called “the huddle”, and the specific purpose of it is to offload our misery, stomp and snort a little, and then get back to work. While it can be cathartic, it is more often counter-productive. I, personally, look for validation and approval for my misery, but in the process leave my team feeling weighed down by my frustrations.  

Though vastly independent, and almost entirely self sufficient, we are made to be with other people. “I Am Legend” is a story about the last man on earth, survivor of a zombie apocalypse. He has at his disposal, anything he could possibly want, but he is missing the one thing that matters, human companionship. There is a scene where he is in a movie store talking to mannequins, hungry for human conversation. The movie “Cast Away” with Tom Hanks has a similar scene, in his hunger for human companionship he was left talking to a Wilson volleyball with a bloody hand print! To what lengths do we go to connect with other humans? 

If we look at our relationships and see an avenue to offload our misery in an effort to feel better, then maybe we have missed the point! While we are kindred spirits in adversity, it is not adversity that binds us together. In fact, misery is not a welcome guest at any table; “Better is a meal of vegetables where love is than the fattened calf served up with hatred!” Proverbs 15:17. 

Adversity is always trumped by love.  While we all share in the “human condition”, probably the most pertinent element of it is love. Our need for love is what binds us together making companionship a requirement, not that we dump our misery on others with the hopes of reprieve, but that we strengthen one another so that we can bear up under it! Dumping our misery, while offering a momentary relief, only serves to open up a void for new misery. Learning to stand strong in the face of misery gives us the ability to overcome it once and for all! This is why we must surround ourselves with people who build us up, and also why we must not be a people who relieve ourselves of our misery on our friends! (don’t relieve yourself on your friends)!