I always remember one English seminar I took while I was at Stanford.  We were discussing Rebecca Harding Davis‘ travails, and one of my more militant classmates flatly stated, “Look, she was white, and she had money.  I don’t want to hear about her problems.”  (You probably won’t be surprised to learn that my militant classmate was also a wealthy white woman).

I find this lack of compassion appalling.  The thinking seems to be that we need to compete on our miseries, and that ultimately, we must all defer to a starving genocide victim somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa.  I don’t believe that compassion is a zero-sum game.

Having problems, even first-world problems, is emotionally draining.  Having difficult choices, even if all the options are enviable, is still difficult.