Journal 2: Self Pity

1. The dictionary defines self-pity as "excessive, self-absorbed unhappiness over one's own troubles."  I would define it as feeling unhappy and sad for one's own situation, often to the point of being unreasonable.  My philosophy on it is that it can stop people from getting things done in life and it is a distraction.  I think people often miss opportunities because they are too busy feeling bad for themselves.  A slight amount of self-pity is inevitable, but I would say it should generally be avoided, as it gets nothing done and has no benefits, except to make one feel better.

2. There are several instances in Tuesdays with Morrie that illustrate a philosophy on self-pity.  One was shown in the paragraph, "I thought about all the people I knew who spent many of their waking hours feeling sorry for themselves. How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity.  Just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day.  And if Morrie could do it, with such a horrible disease..."  This example shows that it's hard to resist self-pity, but that the world would be much more productive if it could just restrain the emotion most of the time.  Morrie is able to cry for just a few minutes a day, because he is able to see the positive side of everything, and he has been able to accomplish so much even in his current condition, because he can limit his self-pity.  

Another philosophy of self pity was shown when Morrie said "Sometimes, in the mornings, that's when I mourn.  I feel around my body, I move my fingers and my hands-whatever I can still move- and I mourn what I've lost.  I mourn the slow, insidious way in which I'm dying.  But then I stop mourning.  I give myself a good cry if I need it.  But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life."  Morrie is only concentrating on the good things in his life, even though he has so many things he could mourn about all day.  This means that life is a lot easier and better if one doesn't allow oneself to mope, but rather to think positively about their life.  Morrie is a great example of this because he knows it won't help to cry, so he limits how long he mourns and focuses on good things in life, such as when Mitch visits.  Even knowing he is going to die soon, he controls his self-pity and is able to accomplish much more.  

3.  I would definitely agree with these philosophies, because I think that one is able to accomplish much more if they limit their self-pity.  Sometimes things are unavoidable, and it's no good spending time feeling bad for oneself.  Although some self-pity is just part of being human, too much is definitely a bad thing.  If Morrie spent all day feeling bad for himself, he would have gotten much less time to think about more interesting things and do the enjoyable things he was still capable of.  I feel that humans in general (including myself) spend far too much time feeling self-pity, and if people thought and acted more like Morrie, the world could be a much nicer place.  This book has really made me think about how we spend so much time feeling sorry for ourselves.  I'd never thought about it before, but now I've started thinking about how self-pity affects our lives, and how it can restrict what we end up accomplishing.  After reading this, I realized that it plays a major part in many people's lives, and that it affects people's accomplishments and relationships.  

4.  The open ended question I've come up with is "How much self-pity do you is ok for someone to have and still be as productive as possible?"

Personally, I think self-pity should be limited to a few minutes a day, and it certainly shouldn't be a major part of anyone's life, as I think it's mainly a distraction.  For someone with a lot of hardships, a little more might be understandable, but I think they better be able to leave their situation if, like Morrie, they focused on the positive things of their life.