Important: this is not referring to anyone in particular, especially not here. I’ve been seeing, feeling, and thinking about this long before the Dope even had a dedicated forum for this.
Like I said above, it’s more of an attitude, not spoken words, but it feels sometimes that I “should” feel guilty for not thinking about others right now in all aspects.
“I’ve been indoors for two weeks; I’ll go crazy if I don’t get fresh air right now!”
“Tough, get over it; people are dying. Priorities.”
“It’s my birthday, and I’m sad that I can’t celebrate or even order takeout.”
“Tough, get over it; people are dying. Priorities.”
“I’ve been kinda thinking about what effect this will have on my favorite game and local small business, and I’m somewhat concerned.”
“Tough, get over it; people are dying. Priorities.”
Is this common, in your POV? How do you feel when you’re confronted with “selfish” thinking? What’s the line here (e.g. cursing coronavirus victims because they kept you from going to your weekly crab boil is probably viewed differently than the examples above)?
If you don’t take care of yourself, you’re no good to anyone else. Your own health and happiness matter, and for the most part should be your primary (but not exclusive) concern.
This weekend I was bummed out because I can’t fix the flat tire on my beloved scooter. I thought the hard part was getting the messed-up tire off and replacing it with a new one. And that was super hard! But no, the drama ensues. Turns out I need an angled adapter for my stem valve because it is obstructed by the wheel hub. It should be arriving tomorrow but dammit to hell. It’s perfect scooter weather but I am stuck walking around like a human being instead of zipping along like a supernatural entity.
Yes, I feel guilty that this very first world problem has been weighing on my mind. But prior to this weekend, I was seriously freaking out about the possibility that my parents, grandmother, and siblings might die from coronavirus. I imagine that next week I’ll go back to that kind of programming, so right now I’m kind of embracing my self-centeredness.
We are all entitled to our feelings–all of them. This is an every day entitlement, but I think it is true especially now.
If you’re feeling sorry for yourself because you don’t get to celebrate your birthday, that’s understandable and totally fine. I think the pushback is coming from people who read that as a call to action rather than griping. “I’m sad about my birthday! Let’s end quarantine!” The only reaction to that would be derision.
Of course, that may not be what you (the hypothetical “you”) meant. Maybe you WERE just griping. And of course, you’re allowed to gripe – but other people may point out that you are griping about trivialities while thousands are dying. Which is true – now more than ever, but it’s true all the time, hence the phrase “first world problems”.
I learned a long time ago not to feel guilty for what I feel or what I think. Feelings and thoughts come and go. Let yourself have whatever thoughts and feelings you have without policing yourself or beating yourself up. Kindness is important now (and always). To yourself, too.
Milk is in random supply. I am a hobby cheese maker. Due to kids needing milk, I am choosing to not buy milk to play with. That just feels wrong during this time.
People are baking more, so sugar is also kinda random. We only use sugar for humming bird syrup. The migrations are happening and the population is picking up. I had serious thoughts about buying sugar today, but realized that our enjoyment of watching the hummers is just as important as the enjoyment bored folks are getting by baking. I bought 20 lbs.
There’s always something worse going on in the world than what you’re experiencing, pandemic or not. It’s ok to have feelings. It’s also Important to have empathy.
I think not thinking about others is OK as long as a person isn’t actively hurting anyone. We can’t all be mensches and saints. But everyone can avoid being jerks, douches, dicks, and bitches.
Just thinking about people isn’t meaningful anyway. “Thoughts and prayers” does jackshit, IMHO. I’d rather people do things that benefit others even if they are driven by selfishnesses (like picking up trash because they don’t want to live in a litter-strewn neighborhood) than not do anything while thinking about how great it would be to do something.
I’ve been on the verge of saying “Screw this! I’m going out” for the last two weeks, and the situation just keeps getting worse. I’m gradually becoming resigned to the fact that this is ‘a thing’ and I’ll just have to adapt. I’ve been craving a drink for the last 10 days (not ‘the shakes’ or anything, just a psychological urge to crack open a few as I watch the sun go down). Yet I’m getting increasingly getting used to not having one, so maybe there’s a silver lining in all this. I know I don’t miss the headaches and fuzzy memory in the morning.
People go overboard with this “tough, get over it” thing (not talking about folks here).
At the local community Facebook group, someone started a post about how how his car had been vandalized the prior night and to warn folks in the area. One person chimed in and said something to the effect of, “People are dying and you’re worried about your car? smh”
I was like WTF? So I replied back, “What? Folks cant’ discuss things besides the virus?”
This is how it’s getting. It seems folks can’t even make a joke, talk about the weather, or discuss how their car was vandalized, without folks getting their knickers in a twist.
Last week was the first time I was really confronted with stay at home isolation. My mother died in mid February and since then I had been going to her house almost every day going through things, packing up and taking stuff to the Goodwill drive through drop off. Life seemed almost normal when I was so busy. But I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t move forward with anything else to do with her death. So now I only go to her house a couple times a week to check on things. This weekend, I started to feel depressed. I retired right before my mother died so I haven’t even learned how to be retired yet. And now it feels like every day is exactly the same as the one before.
Anyway, I was talking to my best friend Sunday night and mentioned I was feeling depressed about not leaving the house. At the end of the conversation he said “I’m sorry you are so bored”. I said I wasn’t bored, just feeling depressed and we said goodbye. (Damn, phone conversations are not optimal!). I know he is feeling very scared right now because he is an essential employee and has to go to work. But it bothered me that he thought I was just being whiny, when he should know me better than that. This afternoon I sent him an email to explain what I was talking about. And email is not optimal either. I haven’t seen him in over three weeks and I could really use a hug.
I guess all this is really just thinking about myself because I’m trying to figure out how to live now. I’m kind of late to the game. I’m trying to keep to some sort of schedule and have a list of goals for each day. I totally understand that I’m luckier than billions of people in that I do have the luxury to never leave the house but it’s still daunting to deal with.
I think its weird that ‘thinking about myself’ is taken by so many of the posters on both sides of the argument as being the same as thinking of my individual rights above all else. I think of myself as a separate human being that occupies 1 seat on a bus but its hard to consider ‘myself’ as being only that, rather than one part of a family and a work team and network of friends who i’ve known since I was 5 years old. If I put myself first, i cant help but think of ‘what will the impact be on my parents’ or ‘will this hurt my friends’. They are part of ‘myself’ when I think about self-interest and the consequences of my actions.
The impression I get is that the American mode of individuality is usually expressed as the political rights of the individual versus more social democratic -> socialist -> communistic idea of common good over individual good. However, it seems that the politics of the last few decades, say since Reagan*, has been about hyper-individuality, where the individual has to consider themselves as a single thing with all those threads of family and personal history that make them unique cut off. Its ironic that the right, blathering on about family values, religion and stable society is keen to create individuality in a way that those things ultimately have no value.
So, back to the OP, its not selfish to think about yourself if your idea of who you are is as a member of a family, community or other group, because then you’ll make decisions about risk with others in mind. If you have a hyper-individualistic sense of yourself, I hope you die quickly because right now you probably feel no connection of any sort to the society and people that you may put at risk with your actions [extreme bluntness for dramatic purposes only, I’m much nicer than that].
To be fair its not just the Yanks, or Ronnie’s fault. Margaret Thatcher famously said there was no society, nothing above individual wants and desires that was worth a pinch of shit [not a direct quote, but gives the flavour].
It’s reasonable to be alert to your own need to fend off depression.
But there is some ‘thinking about yourself’ stuff that is plainly not optimal for anyone, including the person doing it. For example, hoarding. Keeping quantities of medical-grade equipment (masks etc.), or five years’ worth of toilet paper, or a swimming-pool’s worth of hand sanitizer, is not good for the soul.