There are a lot of stupid idioms in the English language. "Misery loves company" is one of the worst. I seriously have never understood it and I hope I never will.
As a special education teacher, I have a lot of experience seeing how different people operate. I have to understand what is motivating to a myriad of personalities.
Some students thrive given one on one adult attention while it makes others nervous. Some kids need to be the center of their peers' attention. Others just want to be left alone. Some kids may even throw a desk or two throughout the year. Many just really want to learn and feel smart.
All of these students have something in common. They all attain some kind of "reward" from every behavior they exhibit. Even the kid who chucks a desk does it to get something. Perhaps they need the immediate stress relief derived from physical aggression. Perhaps it makes them laugh to see a teacher cower. Maybe, because they have no limits at home, they need to be reassured that there are indeed limits in this environment. Maybe they need to know that someone cares enough to tell them to control their impulses. Whatever it is, it feels like a reward to these teens.
Cancelled?! I feel so much better now.
Although I can comprehend desk tossers, there is one type of person who I just can't understand. Those people who believe that "misery loves company" simply make no sense at all to me. Where's the reward in this? What do they get out of it?
A person who is suffering needs to feel relief. That I get. But how does someone else's suffering provide any relief at all? If a person is suffering, doesn't it make more sense to be surrounded by people who can pull you up? Wouldn't it be better to associate with someone who is an emotional state to actually help? Don't you want someone to make you laugh more... not cry more?
This is a much better use of math than what I'm about to do.
I happen to teach math. Perhaps I should put this into an equation.
Kid not getting enough attention + throwing a desk = attention
Miserable person + making a second person miserable = two miserable people
Am I missing something? What is the upside?
There isn't one.
Who the Hell came up with this stupid idiom anyway? I'm sure it was Shakespeare. He comes up with everything... except for this saying. It was actually an English botanist named John Ray who coined this phrase. Thanks a lot you jerk! I bet old Johnny was a ton of fun at parties. "Let's see. I'm not having fun at this party... let me find someone else who isn't. Better yet... I'll stop someone from having fun so they can feel as bad as I do. Why stop at one? Maybe I can make everyone as unhappy as me. Hurray!"
What an ass.
I can think of many more appropriate ways to end the phrase "misery loves..."
Misery loves...
A hug
A baby's laugh
A raise at work
Going fishing
A funny joke
An entire carton of chocolate ice cream
Watching your favorite movie
Sex
Listening to a great album
Exercise
Looking at pictures of your childhood
Going to the beach
Dancing
Grabbing a beer with a buddy
Doing a good deed
Enjoying snow... for one weekend then returning to warmth
Shopping
Watching your favorite team win
Blogging
"Company" does not belong on that list.
I've gotten myself all worked up. I better go listen to a funny joke, exercise, do a good deed, and have a lot of steamy, hot....
chocolate.
What? Did I forget to put "hot chocolate" on the list?
I actually do understand it. It's not something to be supported, but it's a very real "condition".
It falls along the lines of the opposite of a rising tide raises all ships. And we see glimpses of a sliver of it here on Steemit, as some folks resent the successes of others, rather than rejoicing with them.
In a dark way, those who are miserable are comforted by knowing that others are miserable as well. It makes them feel less lonely in their misery. It's not a true or healing comfort though. It's a twisted narcissistic comfort.
We'd do well to understand and attempt to empathize with this thought process. It's bitter and self-destructive. We'll never be able to help them pull out of their depressive and cancerous nosedive otherwise.
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Great points! "It's not a true or healing comfort though." It's like putting ice on a burn. It may feel better for a moment but you are doing more damage. "We'll never be able to help them pull out of their depressive and cancerous nosedive otherwise." Absolutely. You need to be able to understand a behavior before you can change a behavior.
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Forgive me for quoting scripture, but its my opinion that it has something to do with this...
27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil;
for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/2.27
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Actually that fits perfectly here. Clearly it's not logic that is causing this kind of negative behavior. I can see resisting the urge to drag people down as "fighting the devil inside of us".
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Exactly.
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very true gavvet , and you don't have to apologize for quoting scriptures .
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I think I've misunderstood this phrase for a long time. I always thought of it is as: Someone who is currently in a temporary, miserable state, loves to have company. Someone near them who cares enough about them to be with them in that state. That communicates sacrificial love because instead of saying, "I don't want to be around you right now, you're depressing me" they instead say, "I'm here for you, not for me, but for you."
When my mom passed away from cancer in 2007, it was rough. It wasn't completely sudden, so we had months to prepare. My father passed away later that same year and that was really rough. It was sudden and unexpected. On that day, I opened my home for people to come and visit me and many did. They watched a video with me that was really meaningful. That sat with me as I cried. Though I'm not Jewish, I had learned of the concept of "sitting Shiva" and that's exactly what I needed then:
To me, that was the company my misery needed, and it was a beautiful thing.
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This is a much more positive and beautiful spin on the idea! I wish this is what it meant to all people. I am sorry for your loss. I am very happy that you had loving people around you to comfort you and pull you up.
The world needs much more of this... ""I'm here for you, not for me, but for you.""
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I love to hear stories of people pulling each other up in a time of need.
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The most interesting aspect of sitting Shiva, from the little I understand or maybe more so from what I personally experienced, has less to do with pulling up and more to do with presence. Simple proximity and existence has a stabalizing quality. No one tried to cheer me up or claim to understand. They just let me exist in my pain while not running from it or me. Maybe they helped me stay constant instead of sinking lower. Maybe they just held me. Either way, it was just what I needed.
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20 years or so ago, I was a volunteer for Victim Support for a couple of years. One day I was sent out to be with a woman whose partner had unexpectedly dropped dead that morning, right in front of her. I had no idea what to do or say to help her, so just sat on the floor next to her for a couple of hours. Maybe that was all I had to do.
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I think you 100% right. Just being there is sometimes all anyone can do.
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From my own limited perspective, that was truly valuable.
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Excellent point. Sometimes the best thing you can do for a person who is in an "unfixable situation" is to simply be there for them.
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I would say that some people are miserable for the same reason that some are poor. These people are not the same as the "temporarily miserable", but are of a totally different mindset.
Because these people feel mistreated by the world at large, they become nihilist, spiteful and seek revenge/vindication by making their hurt know to others. In doing this by a destructive use of words or physical harm, they make others worse off and continue the all the bad.
These are the people that the idiom is referring to. They just want others to pity them and they don't care if they have to hurt others in order for them to understand how bad they feel.
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That's a good point. At the same time, is it there fault? Are any of us ultimately responsible for the DNA we have or the socio economic status we were born into? For those permanently miserable people, maybe our focus should be more on helping them and less on shaming them. At the same time, it's self-destructive to let those people pull us down also.
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" Are any of us ultimately responsible for the DNA we have or the socio economic status we were born into?"
No, but we are all individualy responsible for what we do. Even in instances where "you can't do any better".
So,
"is it there fault?"
to that extent only, Yes.
To blame someone for something they didn't do (such as "choosing" ones own genes) would be monstrous nonscientific nonsense.
"maybe our focus should be more on helping them and less on shaming them."
For the absolute most of people this would clearly be the ideal.
Some people however won't accept your help or will only let you think that they are adjusting their behaviours at all in order to leech of you. -It's quite destructive and indeed sad. It also makes the rest look really bad, but fortunately few do this consistently.
So yes, it's important to help whenever and however possible. But it's also important to know ones limits and as you said not "let those people pull us down" permanently, or more precisely "without gain or value (consistent with a rational ethics)".
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I think this quote is about how only people who have undergone your hardships can empathize with you. There is nothing more irritating when you are suffering than to have someone do goofy comedy at your expense.
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I think that is a much more positive way to look at this idiom. Clearly it has multiple meanings (I wish it only had the positive meaning). I was focusing on the interpretation where people use it as an excuse to drag others down. I am all for the idea of Misery loves "support". Support is one of the most wonderful things in the world. Support can come from others who have suffered through a similar experience. It can also come from people who can empathize with someone even if they do not share the experience. So I am pro support. I am against purposely dragging others down.
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You might find A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle an interesting read. He talks about the painbody as if it is a separate entity that sometimes takes us over. Since I heard about it, sometimes I have noticed it in people. When they are "in painbody" they are like different people, who want to hurt themselves and hurt everybody around them. I find it helpful to remember that its not really them.
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This is incredibly helpful. Great point that there is something so traumatic happening that it could cause someone to "not be them". The person in the healthy emotional state may need to rise above this in order to help. Thank you!
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Sometimes it won't even seem that traumatic to the outside person. So we might wonder why on earth they are in that state. It can also show as anger. I highly recommend reading (or listening to) the book.
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I actually find this rather easy to do with my students. Sometimes I need to remind myself that adults may have similar issues. Thank you!
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An awful lot of unhappy people go around trying to make other people feel unhappy as well. I am not sure why they do that, but those people are the ones whom the "misery loves company" idiom was created for.
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Exactly. I just can't wrap my head around it.
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I have often used the phrase "Misery loves company" and I associate it to negative people. Let me give you a true life example. Small office situation in the break room. A group of "hens" were talking negatively about a co-worker. That co-worker walked into the room. Subjects were immediately changed. She sits down, everyone is nice-nice and a different co-worker leaves. The group then commences to talk negatively about her!
As I tend to keep to myself and do not participate in perpetuating gossip (though I do admit to like listening to the hens cluck), I cannot believe what back-stabbing bitches they all were. And I didn't even want to think about how they talked about me when I wasn't in the room.
But they know they do this because they're all active participants in misery. They want to talk smack and they need an audience. WHY? Who knows. Maybe because tearing someone down makes them feel better about their miserable selves? I don't know.
Personally, I'd rather fight gravity and the dark place and I steer clear of the negativity when I have a choice.
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It really is way too easy to get sucked into negativity. For the past 6 months I have been actively trying to avoid negativity. I announced to my pals at work that I am trying to stay positive and I'm going to avoid complaint as much as possible. They have actually been very supportive and have reminded me a few times "dude aren't you trying to be positive" it really helps
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YES! And that is so great that your co-workers are supporting you in that way. I have actually had to distance myself from family because of their negativity. I will always love them but I don't always like them so our interactions are quite limited. It's for the best. :)
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I would say that some people are miserable for the same reason that some are poor. These people are not the same as the "temporarily miserable", but are of a totally different mindset.
Because these people feel mistreated by the world at large, they become nihilist, spiteful or seek revenge/vindication by making their hurt known to others. In doing this by a destructive use of words or physical harm, they make others worse off and continue all the bad.
These are the people that the idiom is referring to. They just want others to pity them and they don't care if they have to hurt others in order for them to understand how bad they feel.
I've personally met a few of these people -- and at one point in my life, I was one.
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Thank you for sharing. It is great that it seems you are on a much more positive path. It is good for people to know that just because you fall into something negative temporarily, it doesn't mean you can't change. That's fantastic.
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Totally agree with you ... and thank you! =)
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So I have never really thought about idioms much, until recently. I have always said many of them, but while learning Spanish, I have began to realize that the things we say make absolutely no sense.
Why? Well, because it's the same in other countries.
Here's a funny example: When you are wearing no underwear, you say that you are "going commando" in English, right?...Well, in Chile they say "andar a lo gringo". This basically translates, in a way, to "Walk the gringo" or "gringo walk". The intrenet suggests this is because the celebrities of Hollywood are always "accidentally" flashing their goods. When I heard this for the first time and found out what they were saying, I almost died because I was laughing so hard.
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I think the only time you even think about it is when you are learning them in another language or trying to teach someone yours. "Walk the gringo" is absolutely hilarious. Some people really do need to be careful getting out of their limos...
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Haha For sure.
If you want some laughs, just google "Chilenismos".
There is actually a youtube out there where spanish speaking people try to guess what certian Chilean idioms mean. I'll look for a link later today. Have a good one, Han!
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Misery loves Steem prizes rising!!
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Yeah it does!!! Well played.
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