The Case for Self-Pity

Pitying yourself has terrible connotations, but it belongs to what it means to be a friend to oneself. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/9xffl Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/7DQuX FURTHER READING “It was a sunny Sunday afternoon; you were nine years old. Your parents wouldn’t let you have any ice cream if you didn’t do your maths homework. It was achingly unfair. Every other child in the world was playing football or watching television. No one else has such a mean mother. It was just awful. We learned self-pity when we were young. We’re all – in theory – dead against it. Self-pity is deeply unattractive because it reveals egoism in its most basic form, a failure to put our own suffering into proper perspective against the larger backdrop of human history. It shows how easily our own stubbed toe might matter more than a million dead in a far-off land….” You can read more on this and other topics here: http://bit.ly/2cHj8PI MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/290imOt SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Gemma Green Hope http://www.gemmagreenhope.com/ https://vimeo.com/gemmagreenhope https://twitter.com/gemmagreenhope #TheSchoolOfLife ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices