It Still Gets to Be a Big Deal
· Being
Someone else having it worse does not make what you are carrying less real. On comparative suffering, self-compassion, and Scott Spiezio picking up sticks in his yard.
Someone else having it worse does not make what you are carrying less real.
[quote:Empathy is not finite, and compassion is not a pizza with eight slices. — Brené Brown]
A friend was telling me about something difficult going on in his life this week. It was not catastrophic. There was no hospital room, terrible diagnosis, or life-altering phone call. But I could tell it mattered to him. There was a little hesitation in the telling, that subtle change in someone's voice when they are trying to make something sound more casual than it actually feels. Then, almost as quickly as he let me into it, he started taking it back.
"I mean, it's not really a big deal."
A few moments later came the sentence I think most of us have used at one time or another: "People have it way worse than me." And just like that, something honest became something he felt the need to apologize for.
I recognized it immediately because I do it too. Maybe you do too. We finally admit that we are exhausted, worried, disappointed, lonely, scared, overwhelmed, or simply not doing great, and then immediately start presenting evidence for why we should not be allowed to feel that way. At least I have a job. At least everyone is healthy. Other people are dealing with real problems. I have so much to be grateful for.
All of those things might be true. But I have been wondering if sometimes we use perspective to avoid honesty. And the timing of this conversation was especially interesting because earlier that same week I had shared our Running Ahrens conversation with Scott Spiezio.
When Success Makes Empathy Harder
Scott's story is complicated to hear because, from the outside, he had so much of what many of us spend our lives chasing. He was a Major League Baseball player. He had money, fame, recognition, and championships. If you are worried about paying the bills, trying to keep your business going, struggling in a relationship, or simply feeling worn down by life, it can be easy to hear a story like Scott's and think, Come on. If I had what he had, my life would be better.
I understand that reaction. I think most of us have had some version of it because our culture spends an enormous amount of time teaching us that the next level will fix something. More money will make us less anxious. More recognition will make us feel more secure. The dream job will make us happier. The bigger house, the title, the followers, the championship, or the number in the bank account will finally quiet whatever feels unsettled inside us.
Scott actually reached a version of that dream. He played Major League Baseball for more than a decade and won two World Series championships. In Game 6 of the 2002 World Series, the Anaheim Angels were down 5-0, facing elimination and only eight outs away from losing the series. Scott hit a three-run home run that helped bring the Angels back to life. They eventually won the game, won Game 7, and became World Series champions.
For most baseball fans, that is Scott Spiezio's story. It is certainly an incredible part of it. But after sitting in his home and talking with him, it is not the part that stayed with me most.
After the championships came injury, depression, alcohol, cocaine, damaged relationships, addiction, treatment, relapse, and more treatment. Scott went through 11 rehabilitation programs over roughly 10 years. Eventually his organs began shutting down, and doctors gave him approximately a 20 percent chance of surviving the next several days.
He survived. But survival was only the beginning.
Then came the much quieter work of learning how to live again. When Scott returned home, his life was not magically repaired. His health needed rebuilding. Trust needed rebuilding. Relationships needed rebuilding. Even his yard had fallen apart. So Scott went outside and started picking up sticks.
That was what he could do that day. One stick became another. Eventually there was a pile. Then he could mow the yard. He started showing up again for his kids. He returned to church, reconnected with people he loved, and eventually began coaching and mentoring young athletes.
I keep returning to that image. A man who had once stood in a World Series stadium with tens of thousands of people screaming was now alone in his yard, picking up sticks.
There is something important in the distance between those two scenes.
Success can change our circumstances, sometimes dramatically, but it does not remove our humanity. Money can solve very real problems, but it cannot make us immune to depression, loneliness, addiction, fear, or loss. Recognition can make thousands of people know your name while you still feel completely lost. Achievement can give you something you dreamed about for most of your life and still leave unanswered questions waiting for you when the cheering stops.
And maybe this is where empathy gets complicated. We look at what someone has and quietly decide how much pain they should be allowed to feel.
He has money. She has a great family. They have an incredible career. What do they have to complain about?
Then, without realizing it, we turn the same judgment on ourselves.
I have a good life. Why am I struggling? I have people who love me. Why am I lonely? I have a job. Why am I so overwhelmed? Other people have less. Why am I having such a hard time?
That was what clicked for me while listening to my friend a few days later. We keep deciding who has earned the right to hurt.
Scott's success does not make what happened to him less painful. His suffering does not make what my friend is carrying less real. And whatever advantages you have in your life do not automatically disqualify you from having a hard season either.
Maybe empathy begins when we stop looking at another person's life and deciding how they should feel about it. And maybe self-compassion begins in exactly the same place.
We Live Inside Scoreboards
Maybe part of the problem is that comparison has become the atmosphere we breathe.
Sports have scoreboards. Business has revenue, rankings, awards, promotions, and titles. Our watches score our sleep and our fitness apps count our steps. LinkedIn tells us who got promoted. Instagram shows us who is in Positano. Strava lets us know that somebody apparently ran a half marathon before we finished our coffee. We have become remarkably good at measuring ourselves against everybody else.
Social media has only accelerated something psychologists have known for decades. Leon Festinger's social comparison theory proposed that humans naturally evaluate themselves partly by looking at other people. Today, however, we do not have to wait for the reunion, neighborhood party, or annual Christmas letter to compare ourselves. We can do it approximately every seven seconds if we are sufficiently committed.
Pew Research found that about three-quarters of Americans under 30 use at least five major social platforms. Even the platforms themselves recognize the pressure created by visible scorekeeping. Meta tested removing public like counts from Instagram specifically to see whether doing so could "depressurize" the experience, and eventually gave users the choice to hide those counts.
A 2026 meta-analysis looking at 54 independent samples and more than 36,000 participants found that upward social comparison on social media was associated with lower self-esteem and well-being and higher levels of anxiety, depression, and negative social emotions. Importantly, that is an association, not proof that scrolling Instagram automatically causes depression. But it reinforces something most of us intuitively understand: constantly looking up at people who appear to have more can change how we experience ourselves.
And apparently, we do not stop at comparing success. We compare suffering too.
The Strange Competition of Pain
Brené Brown has a name for this: comparative suffering. When fear and scarcity rise, she argues, we do not only compare who has more success, money, security, or opportunity. We start ranking pain too. I cannot be upset about this because her situation is worse. I should not be worried because his diagnosis is more serious. Who am I to be exhausted when somebody else just lost their job?
It sounds noble because there is empathy buried inside it. We are noticing that other people are hurting. But comparison can turn that empathy into invalidation. My marriage is hard, but somebody else is getting divorced. My kid is struggling, but at least they are healthy. I am grieving a transition, but nobody died. Work is overwhelming, but at least I have a job.
Obviously, some experiences are objectively more severe than others. There is profound suffering in this world: war, violence, addiction, poverty, abuse, injustice, illness, grief, and loss. Being emotionally healthy does not require pretending that forgetting your lunch and losing a loved one occupy the same category.
Perspective matters. But perspective and minimization are not the same thing.
Perspective says, This is hard, and I know it could be harder. Minimization says, Because it could be harder, I am not allowed to say this is hard.
One gives us a wider view. The other tells us to disappear from it.