When it gets too much for me, I too sometimes think --when I hear people talk about their problems-- but what the hell do you have to complain about, really? You're healthy, you at least *have* your life to lead, you're in full control of it and can do whatever you want whenever you want, WTH!? Then I try and calm down instead of getting all worked up about it and think... well, life goes on, apparently, with or without my RSD. So I try and look at it differently, and boy do I try, because it's hard. The problems that others are having might not compare, but people are going through these problems nevertheless and these problems are very real to them. They are just living their lives and you cannot be angry about that. I am not living my life, however, I got stuck with RSD and I have to face the fact that others can and will go about life as usual. It's their right.

I cannot always see it that way, though... I try to.

Then there are others, you know, the kind of people who think that things happening to them are the worst, always the worst. People who do not have the slightest bit, not even the slightest bit of consideration for you - at all. People who don't listen to your problems and who love to hear themselves talk about theirs. Those are people I ban out of my life. I don't even think twice about it.

But...
The others are worth me making the effort to put everything into perspective, even my own issues and worries and problems. And it can be so soothing being a witness to other people's lives, to know that life goes on around you, that there is life going on around you... even when you only are on the sideline, getting older, being disabled and in lots of pain.