For as long as I can remember, I’ve always managed to come across a situation where a person says to me or someone else who’s complaining about something, “Trust me, my situation is much worse than yours,” “You think your life sucks?” or “You don’t understand.”

Sometimes this was in person, but now, more often than not, the phenomenon is happening through Facebook.

It was obnoxious every time someone did that to me — and it was even more obnoxious when someone points this out through Facebook — but sometimes the person who said that was right. Other times, that person was usually being a pretentious jerk who was trying to make excuses for his or her crappy behavior.

I admit.

After this happened to me about twenty times, however, I got to thinking — Why would you ever do that? Why would you ever try to argue that your life sucks more than someone else’s?

Clearly, it’s never a good idea to tell someone, “I understand,” if you have never experienced the horror that is his or her life. Maybe no one has the right to say they’re going through the same thing when they really haven’t or, if they actually have, when they’re not you.

Is it really fair, though, to demean someone’s rocky road when it’s really all relative?

We all have our problems, some more significant than others, and I can list at least six significant reasons why my life is sub-par at the moment.

The thing is, though, it gets really exhausting to hear about peoples’ problems, however excruciating they may be, when they could easily help themselves by taking action or responsibility for their actions.

My point is, if you have any control to make your seemingly awful life better, why don’t you?