The crippling BOGO Offer – Self-pity and Suffering!

Self-pity can cripple and suffocate you unless you are mindful and aware.

We all love to pity ourselves for our conditions and plights. First, let’s accept it, pitying yourself is so, so comfortable. Because to be depressed, to moan and to dwell on what is not is so convenient. Say someone is rude to you, hurts you, then all you need to do is to have that sullen look on your face. And the whole world will come and pamper you, will cajole you, give you all the attention that your ego demands. And you, like the famous McDonald’s line – ‘I’m lovin’ it!’ – will love all that attention. Suppose you get over your hurt, your pain, people will soon stop referring to it. Your ego will then lose its sense of importance. So, your ego will force you to cling on to this debilitating emotion of pitying youself, because it wants to control you. Once in your ego’s stranglehold your suffering is complete.

But while you may wallow in self-pity, know that no change can happen unless you break free from that state. You cannot be pitying yourself, resultantly, take no action about what’s causing you pain, and expect to be free from your misery. Self-pity and suffering come as a BOGO offer – Buy One, Get One Free!!!

Look at yourself. Look around you. You will find so many people living miserable lives, only because they simply love pitying themselves. Poor things, they don’t understand their pain. Pain really is a cosmic wake-up call. It is a call for you to be alert. What happens, for instance, when you jam your fingers in your car door (ouch!!!) – don’t you instantaneously become alert? Until that moment you were not bothered. Driving, speaking on the phone, losing yourself to music, you were not even aware you were in your car. But the moment the fingers got jammed, you were shaken out of your stupor. You became alert. Now you can use that wake-up call and snap out of your reverie or you can choose to stay aloof, writhing in pain and then lament about how everything’s wrong in your Life. If you lament, you will be stuck in the door of your car – metaphorically. And the physical pain will translate into considerable anguish and suffering. But if you heed the wake-up call, become alert, vigilant and choose to move on, your pain may be there, but you will break-free, unstuck. This applies to every situation in Life.

The truth about Life is this: Self-pity is comforting but crippling. Awareness is liberating. When you keep on pitying yourself, you keep prolonging your suffering. When you stop pitying yourself, you not only end your misery, you make progress!