It is the heroin of emotions, the angel dust of the spirit, the cocaine of the soul. Injected into our system with the intentions of recovery, it has the capacity to kill. It’s available and alluring and its dealers and users are often Christians. The name of the drug is pity. No one dependent on pity ever intended to get that way. The first experiment with the drug is usually a legitimate problem; a sickness maybe, cancer, a cold, a broken leg. Perhaps it was taken to weather a crisis, death, bankruptcy, a divorce. Whatever the cause, the treatment is the same, well meaning friends treat us with pity, kind words, sympathetic jesters, empathetic tears. Most of the time the treatment has its intended results. Healing occurs and we pick ourselves up and we continue with our lives. There are times, however, when a habit is formed. The attention and compassion feel good. The sudden flood of love and warmth gives us a type of high. Well intended friends inject our veins with kindness, fill our room with the smoke of understanding. My, it feels nice! In fact it’s been a while since we felt such warmth and sympathy. So, instead of fighting to get back on our feet, we allow ourselves to ease into this addiction. Motivation wains. Creativity disappears. Initiative exists. We love the process of healing so much that we don’t want to get healed. Instead of getting better, we convince ourselves that we’re worse. In time we become pity junkies. We thrive on the compassion of others. We become masters of reciting our woes and will gladly retell the tale to anyone who will listen. We bear our wounds to all who pass, begging for a sympathetic touch. As is true with drugs, each dose of pity is less effective. Soon the pity from others is not stout enough, so we manufacture our own. We convince ourselves that we are a victim of everything. Our parents didn’t raise us correctly. My boss doesn’t respect me. Society expects too much of me. Nobody loves me, everybody hates me. I think I’ll eat some worms. For those who follow this cycle to its end there’s a predictable final step, anger. We’ve become so efficient at convincing ourselves that we are victimized by the world, that the only logical reaction is anger. Anger at the world, anger at family, anger at the church, anger at society. Self pity has paralyzed us to the point that we become useless to the family, to the church and to the community.
–Max Lucado