Pity Party of One

I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes -- until I met a man who had no feet. ~ Jewish Proverb

I want to touch on the topic of self pity. Why? I am feeling rather self pitious today. I'm working on that.

I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this: one bad thing happens and then it sets off a snowball effect of self pity. "I spilled my coffee on my white pants! That's just GREAT! And I accidently scratched my car door with my belt buckle. AND I have a hangnail on my thumb that I use for spacebarring. AND I have an infection of the chin. AND I lost my Zune case. AND my cat died when I was eight. AND my boss corrected my grammer in a Reply to All email. AND-AND-AND-AND....my life sucks!" I'm definitely an offender of the "Snowball Pity Effect" (S.P.E. for short). In addition, misery always loves company so as we S.P.E. down the hill we definitely like to try to pull other people into our S.P.E. ball. We shouldn't have to sit alone in our S.P.E. after all!

As for me, I try not to spread my S.P.E. around, unless I feel like I need advice on what it is I'm feeling sorry for myself about. I generally just stew in my own S.P.E. until I get tired of my own company and snap out of it.

So gentle readers, I want to know: What do you do when you catch yourself S.P.E.-ing? Do you S.P.E. all over the place? Do you S.P.E. on your friends? Do you keep your S.P.E. to yourself? Do you passive agressively S.P.E.? When you do catch yourself S.P.E.-ing, what do you do to pull yourself out of it?

That's all for today. I'm going to go clean up my S.P.E. mess.