INTERESTING OBSERVATION

Have you ever noticed that some people's identity revolves around the hardships that they've endured? I know someone who likes to point out how "street smart" she is. She admires other people who are "street smart". I'm sure that she thinks that I am NOT "street smart". Just a naive country bumpkin. She is not the only person I know who wears her past as a badge of honor. She perceives herself as one tough cookie who is ready to take on the world. I've often found myself in subtle contests with these kind of people trying to prove which one of us has had the rougher childhood or gone through more off the wall circumstances. When I realize what is happening, I get annoyed with myself as well as with them. Why must I reveal what has happened to me in the past in order to gain their respect? Why should my respect for them increase because they feel they've "been through a lot"? I see that its all relative and have trouble feeling that my life or theirs has been tough. Just watch a documentary on the Holocaust. Or on female circumcision. Or on people in other countries being tortured and killed. Those things make our problems trivial. How can people want to wear these trivial things as a badge of honor?

I'm not talking about people who use things from their past in order to help people in the present. Or people who use problems in their past to make them a better person today. I'm also not talking about people who sometimes whine and complain that life is not fair (that would be me). I'm talking about the people who elevate themselves based on a false sense that they have been through more difficulties than the average person. We've all been through things, but I just don't get why someone needs to use that to make themself feel superior.