Here’s who you should feel sorry for: the weak, the sick, the old, the lame, the disfigured, the broken-familied, the unloved, the starving, the poor, the tormented, the persecuted, the mad, the destitute and the overburdened.
Here’s who you shouldn’t feel sorry for: everyone else. A measure of empathy, yes; an understanding of the volatilities in life, yes; but not rivers of sympathy. Leave your attentions for those who need it—do not indulge the self-indulgent and their social media complaints.
Doing this, however, is exceedingly hard, as Emerson noted in “Self-Reliance.”* We are conditioned to indulge others as the social lubricant of our society. You must nod sympathetically to the girl whose feet hurt because she chose to parade hills in Louboutins; you should cry foul because the banker only received a $250,000 bonus.
Luckily I’m here to help, with a series of targeted answers to the most unsympathetic of problems. I’ve crafted these over years of living in excess and complaining about how unfair life has been for me, a Harvard-educated, high-income earning, tall, healthy adult male.**
Banker/Lawyer/Consultant Complaints.
“I’ve been working crazy hours on this deal. I’ve gotten home at 1am every night.”
“Comp this year is ridiculous. It’s not even going to be half a buck.”***
Response: “Well, at least you’re rich.”
