Steve Hofstetter, Comedian - Download your free comedy album now!
Text STEVE to 484.214.0743 (USA or Canada) to get show updates
The Column

Don’t Sweat It
6/159/03

Your problems are not the end of the world. Unless your job is to prevent the end of the world. Then you're allowed to complain.

It's a hard thing to fathom that our lives are not the most important thing to other people. Most of us think that every time we chip a tooth or break a nail, everyone in our immediate vicinity needs to know the exact details. Our immediate vicinity includes our homes, our hangouts, our buddylists, and half of northern Iowa.

I don't care that your friend Sarah totally bought the same shirt as you. I don't care that Bob at the office mistook your lunch for his. And I certainly don't care that you had the weirdest dream, only you can't really remember what happened in it. And if you did remember, guess who still wouldn't care. If you could see me right now, I'd have both of my thumbs pointing squarely at the center of my chest.

I will be the first to admit that I tell a lot of stories where I'm the main character. It'd be difficult to do otherwise. If all my stories started with "I knew this one guy," not only would I be pathetic for living vicariously through other people, my next three words would probably be "at band camp."

My issue is not with people who tell stories about their lives - we all do that. It's how we allow other people to relate to us, how we kill dead air, and how we try to land a sit-com. My issue lies with people who think that the problems around which their stories revolve are more monumental than everyone else's. If your problems mattered so much, wouldn't we already know what they were? I'd be pissed if the world's media were not covering the most important story out there.

"This is Christiane Amanpour with CNN. Today, someone's friend Sarah totally bought the same shirt as her."

When you're in high school, you don't see much of the outside world, so you think that the biggest problem you'll ever face involves your classmates' opinions of you. When you're in college, you don't see much of the outside world, since your biggest problem is how to make things stop spinning. Once you're out of college, you have no excuse at all. What I'm saying is this: when you're reading about wars and czars and scars and SARS, it doesn't matter that someone cut you off on the way to work. Even if "cars" does rhyme with all those important problems.

It is more common to hear "me, me, me" in a conversation than it is to hear it at an opera. And the worst part about this phenomenon is that people force themselves to ask poorly thought out questions about their conversation partner in an effort to appear less solipsistic. I spoke to a friend shortly after I moved to a new city, started dating someone, and released my first book. I filled her in, and then she actually asked me what else was going on, as if that was not enough. She had unfortunate timing - the very next week, I cured cancer. That would have kept the conversation going for at least another minute before she started talking about herself again.

I do not mean to discourage conversation about oneself. Especially since that's how I make my living. But I do mean to remind people that when you're discussing that chipped tooth or that broken nail, know that even you will forget about it in a week. Please remember that there are bigger things out there - that you can wear another outfit, that you can buy another lunch, and that the guy who cut you off on the way to work may have needed to get to the hospital in order to remove the pole from his ass.

In other words, look around once in a while and realize that your problems aren't all that bad. That your day, no matter how poorly things may appear to be going, is just a day, and will be completely different tomorrow. Unless your job is to prevent the end of the world. Then you're allowed to complain.

Archives
*Paris Hilton is No Mother Theresa
*Putting the "Fan" in "Fanatic"
*Thinking Man: Happy New Year
*Jewzapalooza
*I'm Listening
*Punky Brewster Scares Me
*Don't Get Smart With Me
*Checking Out a Check Up
*Yeah, Thanks
*Steve Hofstetter is Your Friend
*Post Halloween Wrap-Up
*My Letter to Me
*The Night the Heat Went Off
*Turn That Crap Off
*You Might Be a Redhead If
*To My Future Children
*Shine Your Shoes, Mista?
*Flying Forward
*DotCom Dating Dish
*Paging Paige Page
*Watch While You Eat
*You Have Got to Be Kidding Me
*Come Home, Rachel I. K'Benjamin
*Get Out Of My Bathroom
*Subway Going Under
*Driving Forces
*Singles Anonymous
*Know When to Fold Em
*The Mirth of America
*Also Known As
*Smooth Criminal
*What That Mass Email Really Said
*Dude, Where's Your Car?
*Thinking Man: Can't We All
*You Might Be a Redneck
*A Nice Hawaiian Punch
*100,000 Friends
*Mine is Bigger Than Yours
*Good Answer
*T Stands for Terrible
*I Love You Guys
*Mitch, All Gone
*Birth of a Hate Mail Archive
*Never Do Today What...Ooh, Shiny
*Can You Hear Me Now?
*Fast Food, Slow Digestion
*Homeland Security, Eh?
*Quality Training Purposes
*The Show Went On
*Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
*Putting My Foot Down
*Breaking the Chain Mail
*Happy Valmochrismaweenygiving
*Mr. Clean's Illegitimate Brother
*The Quest For 10,000 Friends
*Forgetting Paris
*Magnetically Challenged
*New Year's at the Barefoot Boogie
*Instant Carma's Gonna Get Me
*The Biggest Loser
*Steve vs. Kentucky
*Gone in a Flash
*How to Destroy Your Car
*Ghouls, Goblins, and Candidates
*My Freedom From Your Freedom
*Drive Unto Others
*Please Don't See This Movie
*I Love The Clip Shows
*Column of Atonement
*Happy Anniversary, Sugarhill
*Life, 9/11, and the Interstate
*Your Band Sucks
*Spending Wisely
*The Blind Dating the Blind
*Grilled Cheese With a Side of Hip Hop
*The Drive to 25
*Are You There Margaret? It's Me, God.
*Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House
*Seacrest! Out!
*Harder Than You Think
*Glad To Be Here
*Thought for Food
*Feeding the Meter
*She's Ready For Her Close Up
*Paging John Hughes
*Excusing America's Gas Problem
*Extra, Extra, Extra Long Time
*The Finals Countdown
*Your Friends and Mine
*The Future Mrs. Bueller
*Toasting Not Toasting
*A Tall Order
*Snaking Your Engine
*My Hair is the Color of Tomato Soup
*The Solace System
*You Say Potato
*It’s Getting Less Cold in Here
*This is Not a Virus
*Pitchers and Catchers
*Another Night Not at the Movies
*Higher and Higher
*To Write A Wrong
*They Call it Super for a Reason
*Imagine All the People
*Lost Wages, Nevada
*This Just In
*Why Are All My Stands Red?
*For Whom the Wedding Bell Tolls
*Silent One Day Sale, Holy One Day Sale
*I Want To Be That Guy
*Felicity Doesn't Always Mean Happiness
*That Time of Year
*My Cranberry Sauce Looks like a Can
*The Legend of Fat Dead Steve
*Two Beldings in One Building
*Happy Halloween From Happy Valley
*Three Stations and Nothing On
*15 Shots of Nostalgia
*Here's To the Dancing Guy
*Teaching an Old Dog New Sticks
*If You Could Choose Just One Dumb Question...
*Obligatory Pun on The Word Tired
*I've Grown Accustomed to Your Wet Nose
*What Do You Want For Your Birthday?
*What a Long, Strange Trip
*Open Letter to My UPS Man
*That Better Be Your Foot
*The Abandoned Lot is Always Greener
*Putting Down the Pieces
*Take One Down, Pass It Around
*Here, You Throw This Away
*Being Green at the Box Office
*Who Wears Short Shorts?
*America is an Okay Place to Be
*You Can't Stop the Rain
*Don't Feed the Alpha Males
*Don’t Sweat It
*The Special Plate Blues
*You Deserve It
*The Return to Popcopy
*They're Real, and They're Spectacular
*Keeping Your Prom Misses
*Guerillas in Our Midst
*That Weird No Bread Holiday
*The Ballad of the Buttless
*Something About Being Twenty-Something
*Have You Seen My Cell Phone?
*War, Huh, Yeah, What Is It Good For?
*Leggo My Ego
*I'm a Spazz, You're a Spazz
*Can I Please Keep My Pants?
*Engaged in Conversation
*Welcome to PopCopy
*Hold Me Closer, Tiny Bathroom
*My Two-Bedroom Furbee
*All’s Fare in Love and Daytona
*Open? Shut Them
*I Am Everyday Pimple
*Here Comes the Judge Show
*When, Praytell, Were The Days of Auld Lang Syne?
*What Are You Up To This Weekend?
*The Waiting is the Hardest Part
*A Night Not at the Movies
*Funny, You Don’t Look Flu-ish
*Does This Baby Come With Airbags?
*When The Hogan Family Was Still Valerie
*Blue (Haired) Tuesday
*In Loco Parents
*Moving Is Like A Vaccuum: It Sucks
*Thou Shalt Not Save the World and Get the Girl
*Like Oil and Stuff That Hates Oil
*How to Get Hatemail
*Fungi, Octopi, What’s the Plural of Bus? (Part I
*Fungi, Octopi, What’s the Plural of Bus? (Part I
*It Happens to the Best of Us
*Talking To A Piece of Junk Mail
*When You Can’t See the Forest for the Trees
*ICFS Disorder and Celebrity Kid Growth
*Electricity and Other Things They Cut Off
*Goodbye, New York, Goodbye
*La La La-la La La, Sing a Happy Song
*What To Do at Work Besides Work
*Why is This Column Different From All Others?